Jason’s Random Thoughts

Unless you happen to be some sort of linguistic genius, a talented musician, or some unfair combination of the two, chances are you will have trouble learning a new language and the little nuances required for accent-free pronunciation. I’m lucky enough to have my very Japanese wife to help me with pronunciation, but there’s something far more difficult that stands between me and Japanese competency: vocabulary.

Studying a foreign vocabulary has been difficult for me since college, as my brain tends to ignore things it cannot immediately use, catalog and compare (this doesn’t explain my encyclopedic knowledge of Simpson’s, Futurama, or Family Guy). That said, I have had some great success using flash cards to retain information. This is how I finally mastered the hirigana and katakana character sets, and it’s been quite useful in mastering the basic Japanese words one might hear at home. There is one problem with using flash cards, though: they’re difficult to transport.

This is where SuperMemo fills the need. For the low price of $19.90 USD, you can purchase a full licence for the application granting the ability to use databases with more than 30 items. There’s just one problem, though: there’s no point buying a licence. But I’ll give more details about this later.

Who or What is SuperMemo?

SuperMemo is a small application that can run on a pretty wide range of platforms such as Windows, Mac, Symbian (used on mobile phones) and Windows Mobile. It works with a database we either download or construct, and functions similar to a flash card system, but with an important difference: it remembers the questions we have troubles with.

Using an algorithm devised by Apple’s Steve Wozniak, SuperMemo will compile a list of the words we have trouble with the most and present them at specific intervals that have been proven to be the best times to review. Within the space of a few weeks, hundreds of words could be assimilated and put to use in our conversations. I’ve been using it in the unregistered form for just over two months and have found it to be quite useful when drilling new vocab.

So why am I suggesting that people not buy the full version? It turns out the people that used to perform all the administrative duties for the developers have all disappeared.

A Month of Nothing

I bought a license for SuperMemo on July 2nd this year through the Yahoo! Market Store linked on their site. The money was immediately deducted from my PayPal account and a confirmation was sent to my email address telling me that the purchase went through and I would receive an activation code within a few business days. Two days passed and I heard nothing, so I sent a quick email stating the receipt number, my iPaq’s info, and politely asking for a registration code. 10 days later I received a reply from someone asking for the very same info I had sent on the previous email. To make matters worse, they were replying to the email I had sent which already included the information they sought.

So WTF?

Deciding it was easier to just resubmit the info, I replied with the data and waited. And waited. And waited some more. After another 10 day silence I submitted a claim with PayPal to get my money back. To heck with SuperMemo and the poorly maintained organization that spawned it. I can understand if the application is no longer being actively maintained, and I can understand if people are on vacation. But how hard is it to set up an auto-responder or to remove an item from a Yahoo! Store?

The lack of communication and excessive wait time is unacceptable for the purchase of a digital product.

Waiting on PayPal

I’ve decided to give the company 7 days to respond to my demand for refund before escalating the matter with PayPal, and this leaves little time for the company to answer. I’m no longer interested in obtaining a licence key for my iPaq, even though I could put the application to good use. Instead, I’d much rather get a refund and go back to studying Japanese with my PDA-optimized Excel macro. It’s not as mathematically pretty as SuperMemo, but it gets the job done.

Have you used SuperMemo to study a subject? Was registration just as slow?

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I’m sittin’ at a coffee table unable to see straight,
watchin’ parallel lines unwind and undulate,
across the steam-streaked windows the scene seems bleak,
another train leavin’ home
conceding defeat with a low moan.

Hanging in a sky made of stone,
everybody’s leavin’ home,
I call my man Jerome to come meet me in the Twilight Zone
“Leave your mobile phone at home and come alone.”

It’s been a recurring problem throughout my life, but the last few weeks have seen it take new shape. The last time I managed to get a full night’s sleep must have been close to a month ago, with the 30 days since consisting of remaining wide awake for close to 20 hours a day. My wired consciousness interspersed with short power naps; the kind that leave you with bloodshot eyes and the sensation that you’re here, but not.

Insomnia has been both a benefit and a curse for as long as I can remember. In my youth the uncaring touch of wakefulness helped me accomplish some of my most obscure writing which has since been lost to the sands of time. This was back before I had paid much attention to computers and what they could do. The sound of binary code being manipulated by a sliver of silicon with etched lines had yet to seduce me. This was a time of paper and pen.

As I grew older and new hobbies and passions were discovered, I started to develop software in the early hours of the night. My fingers would hammer away at the keys until two or three in the morning, when a voice at the back of my head would then remind me of the alarm that was due to pierce the otherwise silent and dark cavern that was my sanctuary, heralding in the start of yet another day and yet another dollar.

I had thought this was something I could “grow out of.” My older friends had always complained about how tired they were once they reached a certain age. It was something I looked forward to. A full night’s rest, every night. How relaxing.

But it never happened.

Once I Was Fat, Now I’m Not

Since moving away from Ontario in 2002 I’ve had only a handful of restful nights each month, the majority of which have been here in Japan. Aside from these few days of peace, my mind has been constantly battling for sleep while deriding me for all the things I’ve yet to accomplish.

Where’s Embink? Why haven’t I put more efforts into studying Japanese? Why is my Arabic so rusty? Why haven’t I finished my books? Did I fill out my reports at work the day before? How will I present new material to the people who are notoriously resistant to assimilating a new language … despite their presence in the room?

These are but some of the things that run through my head on a minute-by-minute basis. But when the thoughts get quiet … that’s when things get interesting.

I’ve been having lots of “alternate story” moments running through my head lately. Things that I could have said in a given situation had I thought of it or if I were far more rude. One that I had posted to an open community reminds me of something I had read on CraigsList a while back, but most have been rather odd collections of “what ifs” and “who are theys.”

What Ifs are my favourite, as these often turn out to be pretty funny. My mind has a rather poor way of coping with stress in that it makes everything funny … even if it’s not. When things get really serious, I’m often reminded of something I had seen in a book, or online, or on some TV show. It makes me laugh … sometimes out loud. Naturally, this does have consequences, but it’s kept me alive thus far.

Who Are Theys are sometimes fun, but often just an exercise in boredom evasion. I see some people and try to imagine what their life is like. It’s done by taking into account how they dress, what they eat, how they walk, and just about anything else I can observe in the space of five to ten seconds. With this piddly amount of information, I then take it upon myself to guess what kind of house they live in, how materialistic they are, what kind of education they might have and just about anything else a guy in his late-20’s might think about. Suffice to say, it’s the biggest time waster at my disposal outside of reading the Daily Yomiuri.

Thought experiements occasionally mix things up by filling my head with mathematics, the varying laws of physics, and things I’ve learned from sources as respected as a post-secondary institution and as under-appreciated as a children’s science-related TV show (thank you Bill Nye, you science guy!). All of these things combine in order for me to think about the problems with interstellar travel, the amount of energy required to escape the gravitation pull of a black hole right before slipping into the event horizon, the amount of energy created by a star in its life, and just about anything else related to reality … be it inside or outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

But, despite the amount of time I spend in my head, and despite how tired I might get with the various types of thinking exercises, I just can’t fall asleep. Nothing has worked, and I refuse to take sleeping pills. If I wanted to be knocked out, I’d just hit my head against a brick or something. So pills are not the answer.

What have I tried? Everything I’ve been able to find in books and as recommended by doctors. Before sleeping I would:

• drink warm milk
• drink a few beer or something stronger
• get a comfortable bed
• get into a set routine, where I would wake and sleep at the same time
• exercise physically for an hour or two
• meditate
• listen to music
• listen to nothing
• listen to traffic
• watch TV
• sleep in a dark room
• sleep in a well lit room
• not eat or drink three hours before bed

The list has a few other items that I’d rather not discuss but, suffice to say, it’s a pretty extensive list. I’d be happy to get a good night’s rest for about 80% of the month if it were possible. Sadly … it’s not. So perhaps I could enlist a little wisdom from you. Do you ever suffer from insomnia? What do you do to overcome it?

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I didn’t think it was going to happen … but I’ve finally upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. It wasn’t easy, and I’ve been swearing like an Irishman as issue after issue was uncovered when I started to bring all of my data over. What was the root cause of all my problems? It seems I has having some severe troubles with my database.

Yesterday I had gone through the upgrade process a total of four times, each time with varying degrees of success. Late last night, I managed to get most of the site operational after several hours of downtime, but I had lost all my categories, some of my Japanese characters, and a good portion of my hair. This morning, I decided to do something I should have done in the first place: upgrade my dev environment for the new version with my live data, copy the stuff right over, update where necessary, then just push the whole thing over the existing website.

Dev Loves 2.6

I’m usually testing the new releases of various software packages in enclosed environments, and seeing just how easy it will be to upgrade some of the sites that I’m responsible for. In 95% of all cases, upgrades with backup data go flawlessly. The only time I’ve run into some major issues is when I’m trying to upgrade something that needs very particular settings in the php.ini file (but I’ve recently discovered how to get around that on my server). For this reason, I’ve often reported that an updated version of some software is great, and that there were no issues when testing the updates while in the Dev environment. But, when it comes time to actually make the change, my site is down for too long, Google takes me out of their SERPs, and I spend the better part of a weekend in a foul mood as the things I want to be doing just aren’t getting done.

Fun?  Wow!

As I had mentioned earlier, the main problem appears to have involved the database itself.  I had been using a heavily modified version of WordPress 2.1 and, aside from some problems with the newly released plugins, it was working great.  I had modified WordPress 2.1 whenever a new security release would be made available for the various versions.  If 2.1 was affected by the same problem (which I would find out through various forums or sheer dumb luck), then I would update the code accordingly.  Although the 2.1.x line is supposed to receive security patches regularly, this does not seem to be a high priority for the Automattic team.  Considering how many other projects they’ve been working on, I can certainly understand the issue.  So my problem stemmed from some of the stuff I had done way back in June of last year, and it’s carried forward without many problems ever since.

So How Did I Fix It?

When a database goes awry, it’s a terrible time for anyone.  Luckily, I have lots of database tools to work with and lots of backups to restore and play with.  For me, the solution that worked the best is often lovingly referred to as “Scorched Earth.”  This essentially involves killing the database and starting from scratch.

And that’s just what I did.

Starting with a completely empty database, I installed 2.6 and then, using WordPress’ Import Utility, I imported all of my posts, pages, comments and categories to the new database.  This is a great way to quickly restore data to a new database, and it keeps any extra characters that you might be using intact.  From here, I needed to pull in all the other database tables that were used by various plugins.  This has always been the hardest part, but it’s made a trivial task with MySQL Query Browser.

Of all the plugins, the one I had the most trouble with was FireStats.  I love this application, and I had been using a really old version (with database version 6 — the current release uses 14) as it had worked perfectly for my needs.  That said, after updating the site, I wanted to have an updated stats package, too.  I have done this several times for other people’s sites without hassle, so it shouldn’t have been too much trouble for me.  Well … that was the initial idea.

After three failed attempts to upgrade my existing data, I decided to throw caution to the wind and create a seperate database just for FireStats to use.  This was incredibly simple and, after the system had created all the necessary tables, I simply forced my existing data into the new tables.  This allowed me to keep my two years of data while accepting new.

Lucky Day!

Once all of this was complete, I shut off all the plugins, re-directed the database (done in the settings), deleted the live website, moved the dev data over, and logged in to the admin screens.  Done and done.

Final Result?

It seems that everything is now working just as I would expect … except for one big area: I can’t insert images.

Once again, I can’t put images in my posts.  This is incredibly frustrating as I use at least one image in every post.  I can upload.  I can specify attributes.  But, when I go to put that image in the post, I don’t get an image.  Instead, I get an ugly depressed box that tells me it should be seeing an image.  What gives?

That said, I don’t have the time nor the energy to mess about with this right now.  I’ll take a look at correcting the matter tomorrow night while battling insomnia.

Has anyone else had problems with images in WordPress 2.6?  I’ve tried both the flash and non-flash versions to see if it was a browser issue, and I’ve tried both Opera and FireFox.  No luck for either

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Hayao Miyazaki’s (宮崎駿) latest film hit the theatres this weekend.  His first in four years, the tale of 崔の上のポニョ (Gake no Ue no Ponyo — Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea) end the speculation that the animation great had made his last movie.  Reiko and I took advantage of the half-price movie tickets at Kakamigahara Jusco today, and we’re glad we did.  The movie was great.

The movie is said to be inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson classic, “The Little Mermaid,” but there will be very few similarities between the original story or the Disney re-telling.  The story’s main character, Ponyo, wants to see more of the world and escapes her home on a jellyfish.  After running into some trouble with the excessive amount of man-made garbage in the oceans, a boy named Sosuke helps her out and vows to protect the girl from harm.

I won’t go into too much detail, as that would spoil the fun of the movie, but it’s one of those films that people will think of as an instant classic the moment they see it.

That said, perhaps due to my limited Japanese skills, there are some areas that are difficult to understand.  The comments about the proximity of the Moon and how most of an island was completely drowned by the ocean continues to leave me perplexed.  Yet despite the slight confusion, the 110 minute journey into the life of Ponyo and her quest to grow up is a great story for anyone regardless of age or linguistic ability.

Not Miyazaki-sensei’s Last

I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy most of Miyazaki’s works, with the first being Nausicaa.  He’s been said to be one of Japan’s biggest cultural exports and his last film, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” broke box office records in Japan before winning a following among anime affectionados around the world.  What’s interesting, though, is that he has stated repeatedly that he’d like to retire.

Viewers of Gake no Ue no Ponyo will probably notice that there is absolutely no computer animation involved in the movie.  Miyazaki has said that using pencils will be the only way for the Japanese animation market to stay alive, as it sets them apart from the rest of the world.  Regardless of how accurate the statement might be, the hard labour involved to create this motion picture classic can certainly be appreciated.  170,000 hand-drawn pictures were used to animate characters and objects.  A record number for anything done by Miyazaki.

There are also a number of manually drawn pictures as the background, which can be seen with every scene where the small town (possibly in Kobe prefecture) is visible.

Mr. Miyazaki is getting close to 70 years of age, but I certainly hope he doesn’t give up his art.  The man does deserve a rest and to enjoy his remaining  years on the Earth but, at the same time, he clearly loves his craft and it would be a shame if the youthful wonder he adds to the films were to be limited.

If you get a chance, go see Gake no Ue no Ponyo.  Young or old, married, single, other … it doesn’t matter.  The movie is a timeless classic that can be enjoyed by all people, regardless of what moment in life we happen to be in.

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Jeff Foxworthy had audiences around North America laughing several years ago with his “You might be a redneck” jokes and, while the jokes themselves are quite dated, the setup is not. So, as a tribute to the retired comedy act, and to oddities seen around Japan, here’s my rendition of the classic joke:

• If you have a steaming-hot cup of coffee and no steam, you might be in Japan
• If girls wear skirts high enough to show their underwear, but cover their ass when going up stairs, you might be in Japan
• If the posted capacity is 60 people and you call 90 “a slow day,” you might be in Japan
• If English is the unofficial second language, but nobody can understand it, you might be in Japan
• If a large coffee is 300 mL, but a regular beer is the size of a mini-keg, you might be in Japan
• If six people are walking down a crowded street, and insist on walking shoulder-to-shoulder, you might be in Japan
• If you’re paid for five days and expected to work six, you might be in Japan
• If you see someone who looks amazing in a dress, then later find out it’s a man, you might be in Japan
• If you’ve got 15 Louis Vitton handbags, and teeth more crooked than a Ferengi, you might be in Japan

Okay … Some of these are pretty weak. That said, I’ll open the floor to you. Can you think of any good “You might be in Japan” jokes?

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