Jason’s Random Thoughts

Winter seems to be releasing it’s cold grip on the Northern Hemisphere, and the sun has returned to bring plenty of warm weather and beautiful plant life. On top of this people are generally happier and, despite the obvious problems, the world seems a better place for everyone. However, this is also the time of year something big happens across the blogosphere, and there’s only one way to describe it: The Lull.

The Lull is a time of year when net users in North America and Europe remember that there’s an “outside” and begin to spend less time infront of their computers. At the same time, bloggers in the Southern Hemisphere are just starting to get into the Fall/Winter period, but it hasn’t yet gotten to the point where they spend more time inside and online. Because of this, most bloggers will notice a rather dramatic drop in visitors and, by extension, online revenue.

Is this a problem? Only if we want it to be.

Although some of my best work has come out in previous Lulls and received zero or little traffic. It’s a shame, really, and such events can make a blogger question whether they should even be posting during this time, but there are some advantages to this online slow period. That said, how do you use The Lull to your advantage?

New Projects

After seeing a noticable drop following the Spring Break period until the start of June last year, I started thinking about some ways that I could continue to flex some creative muscle without wasting too much time. One of the best options would be to start a new online project.

Starting a new project can be as simple as making a new blog about another subject, working with others to provide content, or just about anything that people can do online. With the Lull slowly building in strength, our regular readers will almost be expecting us to slow down our posting schedule. The advantage here is almost too good to be true. Slowing down one blog, while recording blog ideas for later publication, and strengthening our potential readership by getting our name and site (or sites) attached to other pages.

I’ve done this myself, starting TheCarbonBlog (a bit prematurely, I think), and I fully expect it to take off this coming fall after I’ve supplied another fifty or sixty posts. It’s already ranked number one on Google for a number of unexpected search terms, so I will not drop that project anytime in the near future. On top of this, I’m also working with other bloggers to supply content, as well as helping some others build a new site which will use a very different type of blogging. Exciting times, indeed.

Multi-Part Educational Postings

One of the hardest things to do with a blog is to write a high-quality multi-part post that deals with something complex or otherwise interesting to people. I haven’t yet done anything like this, but other bloggers that have would often see a pretty good boost in readership after the Lull as readers started looking for things in Google again. An example of this would be Nick’s Google Speed-Search Lessons. He breaks down the main points that matter to people, and presents simple and easy ways to find the things we’re looking for with the mega-search engine.

Guest Posts

I love doing this! Over the last eight months I’ve had the opportunity to have my articles published on twelve other sites. The advantage to doing this is the ability to bring readers from all over who either agree or strongly disagree with my position on a given subject. Only once has this backfired and resulted in a ridiculously small amount of traffic, but it is worthwhile for the most part. Just do yourself a favour and make sure you’re not giving a post to a site that’s about to expire … there’s nothing worse than writing for someone that’s “going out of business” as it’s a waste of your time.

Comment on New Sites

This is, in my humble opinion, the best way to make use of The Lull. Not only do we have the opportunity to explore new sites but, by leaving an intelligent comment, we have the opportunity to drive quite a bit of traffic to our sites. This works similar to guest posts, but takes much less effort. Another advantage here is the potential to make another online friend. Expanding our personal networks is, by far, the easiest way to accomplish difficult tasks in the ever-changing Blogosphere.

The last suggestion I’ll make is aimed at people who have blogs with no standard theme:

Find Some New Topics

Most of us are interested in dozens of things, yet we only discuss a few of them online. If we have an “everything” blog, why not discuss everything? Talking about some of the other subjects that interest us is a great way to increase our reach through organic searches (people looking for something through a search engine), while also keeping our content coming. If the general reaction turns out to be pretty bad, don’t worry too much, because the posts occurred throughout the online slow period. That said, you’ll want to pay close attention to what your visitors are reading and how long they’re staying. If the numbers are too low, chances are it’s time to change back.

It’s This, or a Long Vacation

One aspect to avoid during this Lull is the avoidance of writing. We often hear the typical “I don’t have anything to write about” excuse when the weather is nice, and often times we hear nothing at all as a site goes silent and the author is never heard from again. Unless blogging is just a winter passtime, we should never let this happen to our sites.

That said, when the weather is nice, and our friends are out having fun, being inside at the computer is often the last place that we want to be.

How do you use your time during this online slow period?

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This site is back online! After suffering nearly 8 hours of downtime over the last few days. What was the reason for this downtime? An unnecessary upgrade.

I’ve been monitoring the progress of WordPress 2.5 for the last little bit and it’s been pretty good. I must say that it’s quite a stable release and, quite possibly, one of the most visually appealing versions of the blogging platform I’ve ever had the opportunity to use. That said, I’m not too happy about how much work I had to do in order to make it accept my website, nor am I happy with the new rules in place when I’m submitting a post. To save others the hassle of upgrading from one of the previous versions of WordPress, I’ll list some of the issues that I’ve faced.

Issue One - The Database

The database was the biggest area of concern for me. I’m using a heavily modified version of a previous WordPress installation and, because of such, I did not go through the transfering pains involved when version 2.3 was released. Although it should have been relatively straight-forward, I spent a small amount of time updating the database to the new schema, and then a great deal of time going through previous posts and correcting the weird characters that had appeared for some unknown reason. Suffice to say, it was not fun. All of the Japanese characters that I had in my posts and sidebar were converted to something completely unreadable and I had to get it fixed pronto.

If I wasn’t such a nit-picker for consistency, this probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much.

Issue Two - The Admin Interface

This was something I thought was going to be resolved by using the Fluency admin theme. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts to modify the CSS to handle some of my plugins, it just did not want to work properly with FireStats. Anything that does not work with FireStats, does not work on my website, as this is my stats package of choice. I’ll admit that I was getting a little tired of looking at the older theme from the early 2.x series, however, I’m happy to be back to it after trying to work through some of the usability issues that I faced.

Of course, one thing that I did like about the admin interface was how clean it looked.  The Recent Comments box and Incoming Links section was nice and smooth, and it’s something that I’ll look at customizing my current admin theme to show as well.  Heck, this might just be a great reason for me to work on an admin theme for WordPress 2.0.0 to 2.3.3 that will work in FireFox and Opera.  It seems that most of the other admin themes just don’t like anything but FF.

Issue Three - Writing Posts

I write my posts through the web interface. I know that I can use applications like Windows Live Writer and a host of others, as I’ve written about them before, but I was not happy with the fact that I still could not write a blog entry from Opera and, after firing up FireFox to write the post, I could not easily add images and format them the way I could with previous versions of the software.

Image handling in WordPress 2.5 has got to be the worst I’ve ever seen, despite all the eye-candy that is in place. I didn’t like the upload screen greying out the rest of the page and showing up with it’s broken CSS layout, nor did I like the fact that when I wanted to change the attributes of the picture after it was in my post, I had to do it through the HTML screen because the Visual Editor didn’t realize that I was talking about the selected picture. If I tried to edit any image on the screen with the on-screen tools, the picture would disappear as though it was never there in the first place.

My apologies go out to any developer that had worked hard on that area of WordPress, but with all the different issues between Opera and FireFox on that one screen, I just couldn’t bring myself to “get used to it.”

The layout of the different functions in the write screens was another bone of contention. I edit my timestamps constantly. Sometimes to have posts publish themselves in the future, other times to back date them a few hours for a nice round posting time. Although the current theme doesn’t show it, all of my blog posts have a time stamp of midnight, noon or six pm. I would explain why, but my oddities are a topic for later discussion.

Issue Four - Plugin Handling

I don’t think there has been a single prime release of WordPress without a large group of people complaining about plugins and how they just won’t work under the new platform. This was also the case with me, where each and every single plugin needed to be updated before it could work. In some cases, this meant that I had to shut some plugins right off because they just would’t work with 2.5. The biggest disappointments were the TLA and LinkWorth plugins that failed to work after the update. Although I don’t make a lot of money with these things, it’d be nice if such simple plugins wouldn’t be killed just because the developers decided to change the name of some functions.

Plugin longevity is the biggest hinderance to the mass adoption of WordPress as the blogging platform of choice. Every three months, plugins need to be re-written. I’ll admit that this is true for perhaps 30% of the extensions out there, but 30% is still a pretty large number. Although the community can certainly appreciate the power and potential of the WordPress platform, it’s next to impossible to take the software seriously when everything someone has done before is rendered obsolete before their work is even a year old.

People complained about Microsoft doing stuff like this every three to six years with the big changes between 2000, XP and Vista … why does Automattic think they can do this without any real consequences?

Of course, they don’t make these changes without the negative reactions from the community, but it’s something that needs to be addressed more. If Matt really wants this software to be taken seriously, then he needs to stop writing 4 word blog posts and be a bit more serious about maintaining compatibility. Perhaps, like Windows, plugins could have a compatibility mode and run “as though in version 2.3.3.”

Conclusion

WordPress 2.5 is a great platform if you’re just starting out and use the very same browsers as the people that wrote the software. However, if you’ve been blogging for a while and have everything set up just the way you like it, do yourself a favor and keep using what you’re using. If you’re worried about security patches, just remember that the people at WordPress promised us to continue releasing security fixes for the 2.1.x and 2.2.x line for some time. Whether they’re actually doing that or not, though, is another matter.

Have you upgraded to WordPress 2.5, yet?  What do you think of the changes that have been made?

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It’s a common occurrence: a younger generation grows up listening to a type of music their parents consider to be noise, senseless rambling, or shameless self-promotion. Then, as that younger audience gets older, their definition of “good music” tends to take on the same stagnation that their parents faced. My father stopped listening to a lot of new music in the 1980’s, while I gave up on pulp music around 1998 or 1999. It seems that since these pivotal years, 95% of everything we hear on the radio, TV or in movies has sucked harder than an industrial-grade vacuum.

If English “music” continues on this downward spiral, BMG just might sign me a record deal and I’ll have the opportunity to win the “best second-language lesson” category at the Juno’s.

One exception, though, has been Japanese pop music. Rather than the 19:1 ratio of crap-to-music we see in North America and Europe, we see something closer to 4:1.

So what is the reason behind this drastic difference in lyrical quality? Is it the fact I’ve only listened to J-Pop for 10 years? Is it the fact I’m not fluent in Japanese, so my appreciation of the culture and language has not yet diminished? Is it the fact that I’ve grown tired of hearing about English “artists” talk about themselves, their drug/alcohol habits, their wealth, their grievances and their endless sex orgies?

Perhaps, but there’s a bit more to it.

A Little Rhythm Goes a Long Way

It seems that, regardless of genre, most English lyrics have been put to, essentially, the same beat. There is no variation to the endless bass riffs, tweets and expected pauses. On top of that, we see nothing but an endless parade of Dr. Dre wannabe’s or boy bands full of metro-sexual-posing dolts. Most solo male singers whine about losing women, and most solo female artists complain about lazy men who whine or their desire to go clubbing and “hooking up” with something at the end of the night.

What happened to the songs that could make us laugh? What happened to the songs that made us feel good? What happened to the songs that told a story? And, by story, I don’t mean listening to how someone scored some “sweet ass” at the club in L.A., then flew to the Caribbean on a private jet to engage in various lustrous acts on a $20-million yacht.

I guess that content doesn’t matter anymore.

Alternative Music Is Not Alternative, It’s Pop

A while back I started looking for something new and found a few other languages with a suck-to-song (s2s) ratio of under 10:1. In the event you’re in the market, you might want to lend your ear to some of these languages.

Jamaican Music (9:1 Suck-to-Song Ratio)

Although most Jamaican music we hear is (technically) in English, the accent and regional dialect is unique enough for me to consider it another language for the purposes of this article (just like how English and French are regional dialects of Latin).

The primary themes in this genre include enjoying family, friends, sports, marijuana, or some combination thereof. Naturally, other topics such as politics, humanity, freedom and personal loss are also covered, where the artist often inflects a good deal of emotion into the work as they have likely experienced the situation.
The often repetitive beat can get boring pretty quick, however, there’s nothing better than a little reggae or soul in the summer heat.

Recommended Artists:

• Dennis Brown
• Calibe Thompson

French Music (8:1 Suck-to-Song Ratio)

When I sat down and worked it out, the French s2s ratio really surprised me. I thought it would be higher.

Like most other languages, the main topics are love, family, loss and aspirations. The best part of French music has got to be the way lyrics blend with the music. Unlike English pop music, spoken-word lyrics are not common.

Recommended Artists:

• Sanseverino
• Edith Piaf

Arabic Music (5:1 Suck-to-Song Ratio)

I’ll admit that my Arabic is pretty weak, but from what little I do know, some of the popular music coming out of Saudi Arabia is pretty good. The most popular songs tell about good times with family, friends, and working hard to earn a living.

Though it’s a very lyrical language to begin with, the fusion of Arabic and instruments is something to be admired. There are quite a few artists around the world that have been able to take the best qualities from Saudi music and blend it with their own.

Recommended Artists:

• Abdul Majeed Abdullah
• Rabeh Saqer

Japanese Music (4:1 Suck-to-Song Ratio)

Oddly enough, Japan has the least amount of sucky music. Considering how many songs on the radio and on TV are either really childish, super cute or just plain off-beat, there is a remarkable amount of good music covering the usual topics of love, rejection, desire, family and friends. On top of this, several artists sing about accomplishment or stories that we can relate to.

Of course, Japanese music isn’t for everyone. Quite a bit of it is repetitive, but every artist brings their own unique sound to the matter. The only exception, however, would be the boy bands and girl bands. It seems that these pop groups all have the same songs, themes and faces. The only exception would be SMAP, who managed to create a unique niche for themselves as they continued to be popular past 25.

Recommended Artists:

• Utada Hikaru
• Thelma Aoyama

Perhaps It’s Just Age

What is it that causes us to stop enjoying new music as time goes on and is it reversible? Then again, does the reason for our suspension of musical taste even matter?

What do you think of today’s pop music? Has it degraded to the point that we can no longer enjoy it, or has it become better with the “freedom” of expression that we see in so many Western-style musings? If you listen to non-English music, who are some of your favourite artists?

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I have a problem, and I’m not sure what to do about it. I have too many things to blog about, and it’s getting more difficult to keep track of what should be discussed and in what order, as well as which site should get the content.

How many blog topics do you have in your queue? One? Three? Seven? As of right now, I have forty-seven.

Forty-seven posts, most partially written, for three of my blogs as well as guest posts for elsewhere online.

While an abundance of articles is usually a good thing, I’m finding myself running out of time to complete these small projects while also affording a good amount of time to work, family and sleep. It’s a shame I don’t earn a respectable income through my online writing ventures, as things could be much easier if I’m essentially working for myself.

Looking For Better Tools

A few days ago I posted an article outlining some potential ways to keep track of our articles, and in it I had mentioned using a pen and paper to work on rough drafts as well as record ideas. I’ve been using a 5 year old HP iPaq for this task and it’s clearly getting on in age. To that end I’ve been looking for something a little more up-to-date and capable of keeping up with my expectations. Something that many portable devices in the past have failed miserably at.

The HP iPaq 210 was one of my first choices, as this is the newest and most versatile PDA on the market. I’ve had great luck with HP in the past, and I would have no problem staying with them in the future. Cost of the iPaq 212: $425 CAD.

The Asus EeePC is another option, as an ultra-portable would give me more options. Not only could I write posts faster with such a device, but the option to write custom plugins or modify my theme would be there as well. On top of this, the battery life is supposed to be superb. Cost of the EeePC in Japan: ¥49,800 ($510 CAD).

The next ultra-portable that has caught my eye is the Japanese-made Kojinsha E8 mini-notebook (my kingdom for a real link to the manufacturer’s site). This unit is similar in size to the EeePC, but that’s where the similarities end. These machines are based on notebook technology and, because of such, come with standard notebook features. Cost of unit: Starts at ¥60,000 on sale ($615 CAD).

Keeping on the ultra mobile notebook theme, the final option is a HP Compaq 2133. This unit is one of the bigger mini-notebooks, though, and will likely be the most expensive option. To make matters worse, this is still in design and testing stages, which means I’d be forced to wait until late-summer/early-fall. Expected price: $650 CAD to start.

All This To Blog?

Blogging is a funny thing. Some people can do it with zero financial costs and thoroughly enjoy it. However, I’m not one of those people.

In 2006, my total financial investment in blogging was $27.50 USD. 2007 worked out to $95 USD. 2008, though only four months into the year, has seen a total investment of $133.75 USD. That said, since June of last year, all online expenses have been covered through advertising funds.

Like most hobbies, when we start to take something seriously, we invest more than just time. Previous hobbies have included robotics, high-performance computing, gaming, reading, model trains and long-distance driving. None of these were particularly cheap, but the sheer enjoyment of the pastime was more than sufficient to make up for any financial burdens. Blogging is no different.

The way I see it, my existing computer equipment has survived 5 long years of use. Anyone who knows me will realize that I am not one to under-utilize technology. Truth be told, I feel sorry for my computers. When they’re misbehaving or broken in some way, I have no trouble ripping them apart (both hardware and software) in order to correct the matter. There’s also no such thing as “retirement”. Machines are always useful, even if it means converting them to perform a task they are not designed to handle.

So if blogging is such an enjoyable hobby, why not invest in some of the better tools out there in order to accomplish more? Typing on a mini-notebook would be quite a bit faster than writing block characters on a half-broken PDA.

Preaching to the Choir?

Of course, I’m probably preaching to the choir about this. Truth of the matter is that I’ve already decided to invest the cash into a new portable device. Which one? I haven’t decided. However, like all of my blogging expenditures since June 2007, the cash will come exclusively from online earnings.

The paychecks are for bills.

Do you find blogging addictive? Have you made rules for yourself to make sure it doesn’t completely take over your world?

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Yes, it’s true. I have accomplished one of the goals I set out to do when I started working in Japan. I have convinced a native Japanese citizen with a bias against foreigners that immigration is a good thing and should be better promoted to the general public.

It started out innocent enough, too. I had the opportunity to discuss the topic with a Japanese person at my work, and we both knew that it was going to be a hot topic of discussion. Knowing ahead of time of what was to come, the anticipation was killing me long before the opportunity arose to actually make my case, or hear the other side. That said, when 6:15 finally rolled around, I was more than ready to jump into the fire and prove that every law-abiding foreign resident of Japan (and, by extension, any other country) has a right to live and work in any country they choose, so long as they follow the law.

The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: “There are 2.1-million foreign residents living in Japan. Is this a good thing, or should immigration be closed and foreigners sent home?”
JP: “Yes. Immigration is a terrible thing!”
Me: “Oh? Should I go back to Canada, then?”
JP: “No, you can stay.”
Me: “But I’m an immigrant. I want to live in this country for the rest of my life.”
JP: *blink* “You do?”
Me: “Yes. I do. Why is immigration such a bad thing in Japan?”
JP: “Because immigrants don’t pay tax.”

We don’t? When did this start? I’ve been paying tax off every paycheque and on every purchase since landing in Nagoya last August! Prefectural taxes. Federal taxes. Shakkai-Hokken. I pay them all! There is no special exemptions for gaijin in the Taxation Law.

After correcting this misconception, though, came the second reason immigration is bad in Japan: foreign crime.

Oh, this poor Japanese person … I ripped into that statement with a passion, quoting specific figures from my research in February and emphasizing the unfortunate circumstance in Japan’s criminal statistics where offenses are not differentiated from crimes. Concrete examples of Japanese crime rates, trends and histories were brought out as ammunition, as was the ridiculous crime rate found within the upper echelons of this nation’s government.

She never stood a chance but, unlike most natives I chat with in Japan, this woman enjoyed a good debate. “What about the destruction of our culture?” she argued.

Do the Japanese seriously think their rich culture and unique festivals are at risk from foreign influence? Well … in a word: yes. However, this reason, like the two before it, is little more than an over-hyped “problem” reported on late night talk shows hosted by ultra-conservative xenophobes with bad wigs. It’s true that Western culture has drastically changed the landscape in Japan since the 1950’s, but this is not solely the fault of foreign influence.

Western culture was strongly promoted by the media following the Second World War at the request of the Japanese government who, in turn, were requested by the United States as part of the ‘Modernization of Japan.’ Much like the Romans, though, the U.S. never asked the Japanese to give up their traditions, festivals or cultural identity. The goal was to develop a cultural synergy similar to what was found in Hong Kong at the time. The fact that so many people quickly embraced much of the Western habits and ideologies is just a testament to the Japanese desire to assimilate other cultures and ideas into their own.

Heck, it’s happened quite often in the past, too.

• the end of the Shogunate with the arrival of the British Black Fleet
• the creation of a democratic government based on the British Parliament in the 1920s
• the adoption of the Kanji writing system from China
• the adoption of minting coins from China or Korea

Need I go on? The Japanese weren’t forced to buy Gucci bags, Pravda boots and Calvin Klein underwear. They made that choice themselves, quickly integrating their own styles and fashion preferences with these over-priced products.

I’m not going to take sides on whether the Westernization of Japan was good or bad, though, as my opinion is just that. An opinion. The goal of the day’s debate was to present facts which would prove the importance of immigration to the future stability and sustainability of Japan as a nation.

The Clincher

Although the last argument was a little weak, the tide turned when we started talking about retirement.

Me: “Will you receive a pension that you can live on when you retire?”
JP: “Yes.”
Me: “Are you sure?”
JP: “Maybe.”
Me: “You know the government is conveniently losing payment records for people approaching retirement age, right? Have you also heard about the plans to raise consumption tax to 12% by 2015 and merge the provisional gasoline tax with the general coffers to supplement the failing pension system? Even with raised taxes, how will the government collect enough money in 20 years when 44% of the population will be claiming a pension and only 38% of the population will be working?”
JP: “Umm….”
Me: “Japan needs us. Japan needs to open its doors to bring in 10 times the number of foreigners to work in all the empty factories and office buildings, while also paying taxes and feeding Japan’s failed pension fund. Without foreigners, you will have a very short retirement.”

I wish I could have taken a picture as the dawn of realization came over my opponent. She knew all these facts about taxation and the pension system already, but never put all the pieces together. And who can blame her? The media sure as heck won’t tell the general public that their pensions aren’t coming, push for a more open immigration system or a fast-tracking of employed people wanting their work visas renewed.

After it was all said and done, all she could say was “you’re right.” Two words I rarely hear when discussing politics with Japanese people.

A Bitter-Sweet Victory

Although I “won” the debate, it didn’t feel like much of a victory. The problem of misinformation and half-complete ideas is an everyday occurrence in various forms of media and, even though I succeeded in validating my presence in this country to a native resident, there are still millions of others that believe the borders should be closed and foreigners closely monitored.

Hopefully one day the message will be shared, saying that Japan truly welcomes their foreign workers and residents but, unless there is a drastic change in the federal government, this isn’t likely to happen.

Have you ever been asked to justify the reason you moved to a new country? What kind of things do discuss with the other person?

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