Jason’s Random Thoughts

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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武島 (Takeshima) is a group of disputed islets situated between Japan and South Korea. The South Korean government claims this patch of land is sovereign territory and refers to it as Dokdo. Japan, on the other hand, steadfastly sticks to the position that the island group is an integral part of the country’s territory historically as well as according to international law. This has been the case for over half a century, and will likely continue to be the story for the same length of time.

We can see the same kind of story between Japan and Russia concerning the sovereignty of 色丹 (Shikotan), 国後 (Kunashiri), 択捉 (Etorofu), and the はぼまい (Habomai) group of islets just off the northern coast of 北海道 (Hokkaido). Unlike the situation with Russia, though, the South Koreans are much more ambitious with their dramatic territorial claims.

But who is the rightful nation to this semi-appealing group of rocks sitting exposed in the middle of the Sea of Japan?

Historical Perspective

Japan first took control of Takeshima in the early part of the Edo period (1603-1867). Before this time, there were no inhabitants on the islands, and the only significance this small region had was the fishing. The islets were put under the jurisdiction of Shimane Prefecture in 1905, and all was well and good with the situation.

This changed in the 1950’s, though, when South Korean President Syngman Rhee declared Takeshima as sovereign Korean territory and gave them the name of Dokdo (meaning “Independent”). This transpired shortly before the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect in 1952, where Japan’s internationally recognized sovereign territory was mapped out. Since this time, South Korean military personnel have illegally occupied the islets.

The Current Situation

South Korea and Japan are neighbours, both politically and geographically. The nations have worked together well in the past, and they’ll need to continue working together if they hope to create any lasting relations with North Korea and secure their position as an economic power-house on the Pacific coast. While there has been quite a lot of huffing and puffing on various subjects, the nations of South Korea and Japan are not all that different. Why the mention of a group of islets in a teachers’ manual warrants the recall of ambassadors and prompts official protests is beyond me.

The teacher’s book explicitly avoided talking about the Takeshima islets as though they were an integral part of Japan’s territory, and asked that lessons on this disputed collection of rocks be handled in the same fashion as how teachers currently discuss the disputed regions in the northern territories. This includes discussing the dispute between the nations, as well as the history behind the political impasses.

Looking at this from a third perspective, it’s clear that Japan’s Education, Science and Technology Ministry has clearly given a good amount of consideration towards South Korea and how they would view the instruction booklet. Despite this, the South Korean government is opposed to the move, and proved it by temporarily recalling their Ambassador to Japan, Kwon Chul Hyun.

That said, what Japanese school children are taught in school regarding these disputed lands could affect their sovereignty at some point in the future. If the residents of this nation are completely unaware of the history regarding Takeshima, they may let the region go at some point in the future to the Koreans, which could then affect Japan’s commercial concerns in the region.

Or so I’m told.

Diplomatic consideration belongs in government buildings and should have little to do with how Japan decides to discuss a portion of their history with the coming generations. Unlike the curriculum guidelines that are laid out by the ministry every ten years, the instruction manual is not legally binding. That said, it’s significance cannot go unnoticed as it often serves as a guideline when editing school textbooks and during classroom exercises. For this reason, publishers will have to commit themselves to providing incredibly clear explanations of the situation in their textbooks, while teachers must properly educate their students. This will be some slippery ground as nations tend to be quite sensitive about topics such as sovereign soil.

Finding a solution to the Takeshima islets issue will be incredibly difficult. Hopefully the governments of these two nations can sit down and rationally discuss the topic without upsetting too many of the ultra-nationalistic individuals on both sides of the sea. It’s incredibly important that Japanese people understand the issue and can state their case to the international community, but it’s also important to keep an open dialogue with their passionate neighbours.

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When it comes to portable devices, their usefulness boils down to just a few little things: ease of use, expandability, and battery life. This last one is especially important if you intend to use the little machine more than the average person.

In the case of my HP iPaq 211, I use the little computer for just over four hours a day, every day. On a particularly slow day at work, I can easily use the digital assistant for more than 6 hours. Suffice to say, this makes battery life a primary concern whenever I’m walking out the door of my apartment. The first question that runs through my mind, right after confirming that the computer is in my pocket, is “how full is the battery?” followed immediately by “did I download my RSS feeds and email?”

For the last few months, I’ve been fortunate enough to get approximately five and a half hours of life from the battery if I’m using it mainly in Word, Excel, Egress, email, and Embink. If I’m watching the latest episode of Daily Show, Colbert Report, or something else that was re-encoded for the limits of the handheld PC, then I can expect to get just over four hours of operation. I had thought this was all I could expect from the standard factory battery but, thanks to a relatively new update on HP’s software site, I can get another hour or two out of the existing hardware.

A Welcome Software Update

HP released an update to their iPaq power management software this past May to resolve two rather important issues. The first is the ability to insert an extended capacity battery and actually charge it to 100% (which was something that wasn’t possible before this update), and the second is to get the most out of the factory slim battery. While getting a 100% charge on extended batteries is certainly important (it would be had I dropped the extra coin on such a battery), I don’t have easy access to one of these to test just how well the software update resolves the issue. That said, I do have a factory battery installed which I know has an average lifespan of five hours.

The result? Seven hours of simple usage, five with WiFi on and active, and five when watching DivX movies.

Not bad, if I say so myself. This free software update just extended the life of my battery by upwards of 90 minutes.

Watch Out For Your Storage

Before I go too much farther, I should mention that there is a known issue regarding the use of SecureDigital and CompactFlash cards that do not support “Power Down Mode”. While it’s not a huge issue, it’s certainly something you’ll want to keep in mind if you want to squeeze every bit of power out of your battery in actual usage, rather than idle power drain.

No-name brand SD and CF cards have been known to drain anywhere from 8-15% of battery power during a six-hour off-period. There have been lots of forums reporting this issue all over the web, and I’ve noticed it myself when I’m just too busy to use the PDA during one of my rare full-day rushes. I use a 2 GB Patriot SD card and often find a 12% power drop between the hours of 12:30 PM and 9:30 PM if I do not use the machine. The PDA is not set to automatically come on during this time and, unless I foolishly have the WiFi or Bluetooth module activated when the unit is shut off, it will not wake itself up for any reason.

Since I’m not one to just accept a 12% power loss while the iPaq sits quietly in my pocket, I did a little research and found that if every program is completely shut down before getting down to work, I will lose about 9% of power rather than the 12% I had been accustomed to seeing. Considering how the only data stored on the SD card is a backup of my current on-device data, a few videos, a few dozen mp3’s, and about 200 eBooks, this surprised me. What could be causing a 9% power drain if only 3% is consumed by active programs that may not necessarily read data off the SD card?

Taking it a little further, I decided to remove the SD card before starting my day at work and ensure that all applications were shut down. Being the geek that I am, I had cut out a place in my Compact Flash plug big enough to hold two SD cards should the need arise. I have no CompactFlash devices anymore, and I often carry two SD cards. One has PDA-specific data, while the other has … umm … data that I’m not likely to share. So, after 9 hours of zero usage and no flash cards being installed, how much battery did I lose?

Negative two percent. Yep. I went from 83% to 85% in 9 hours while it was off.

Clearly this is due to several factors. Because the device wasn’t on for so long, it was able to cool off in the chilly 25 degree office. On top of this, I had been using the machine for over an hour before shutting it down. This would have caused quite a bit of power drain and may have led to a slightly pessimistic power read by the software at 12:30. Either way, the message is clear: my SD cards do not support low power modes, or shut down when instructed.

But Wait, There’s More

To make things just a little more interesting, I decided to install one of my really old SanDisk 256 MB SD cards to fully test out whether this power drain was the fault of non-power-downable flash memory. This particular card was purchased with my Palm m505 back in 2002, and currently occupies the “back up memory” position for my digital camera (also known as in-the-case-and-behind-the-batteries-just-incase-I-take-so-many-pictures-that-I-fill-every-SD-card-I-carry). How much power did this ancient card drain during a 9 hour off-cycle while sitting patiently in my shirt pocket?

Zero percent. The system showed 86% that day at 12:30, and showed 86% again at 9:30 when I finally got on the train home.

Interesting….

The good news is that the power drain is much less of a concern with the updated power management software made available by HP, but it’s still something less desirable than I’d like to see. Perhaps I’ll consider getting one of the recommended SD cards on HP’s site but, for the moment, I don’t think my piddly internet earnings could buy me an SD card at any of the local retailers here in Japan. Despite the massive price drops all over the world, flash is still priced at 2002 prices in this country.

Have you noticed any power drains with your portable device? Any ideas to the root cause?

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The Chicago Tribune recently posted an opinion piece (Blah, blah, blog, blog) that tried to rip into microblogging, microbloggers, and pretty much everyone born after 1982. While I might not be big on the whole microblogging segment, I really don’t see why a paper that was once viewed as being one of the better publications in North America would resort to putting something of this quality on their site.

It starts out with a rather apt attempt at emulating what we might find on a person’s Twitter page or something of the sort, then gets right into the whining by saying how people that microblog think they’re more special than anyone else because we were told so right from the they were born. The unnamed author then goes on to say that pretty much every blogger is the same, and we all write the same unnecessarily boring crap with the misconception that people actually care about what we’re doing in the world. While some of us might actually post something now and again to say what we’re doing, it’s really just the younger generation that’s filling their pages with such trivial information.

But is this really something that can be put in the Chicago Tribune as an Op-Ed? Before people could put the mundane details, the exciting developments, the hopes and ambitions, or anything else that’s distinctly human online, we had the telephone. Girls would spend hours on end talking on the phone to friends, despite having just spent the better part of the day with them at school or some other location. Before the telephone was the letter. Before the letter was the face to face. But in every case, the previous methods for communicating have always played a strong part in how we communicate with each other. The newer media just let us do it differently.

What’s particularly interesting is this person’s incredibly narrow view of what blogging actually is. One glaring example of the author’s tunnel vision comes in the following paragraph:

So why blog? A. Bloggers find their lives fascinating; B. They find their lives more fascinating than others do; and C. They want to prove it—by blogging.

Wow … I find my life more fascinating than anyone else’s, which is why I post articles of semi-questionable quality on this obscure and unadvertised website? How interesting that a person who knows nothing about me could be so utterly incorrect. Of all the blogs that I read, there is only one that would fall into the category being painted with such broad strokes, and it belongs to a 32 year old man from Malaysia. Hardly the “Generation Y”, holier-than-thou, more-trendy-than-j00 kind of person that’s described in the very American editorial.

Who’s Number One?

But the unknown author does have a point: a few people do write blogs that talk about absolutely nothing, and these same blog authors are incredibly self-absorbed.

He or she then goes on to talk about a study conducted at San Diego State University that concludes that today’s young people are more narcissistic than any generation before them.

Really? I mean … REALLY?

We had a group of people less than 60 years ago who claimed to be from “The Greatest Generation” and carried the right to go gallivanting about the globe while polluting the planet with Styrofoam cups, 8 cylinder muscle cars, and disposing of just about anything once something better came out. The Greatest Generation made keeping up with the Jones’ a national pastime, for God’s sake. This same group of people then have the nerve to procreate like mad, creating a huge baby boom that will have long-lasting implications for the entire human race, all while believing they did something better than anyone else.

Did I forget to mention that this same “Greatest Generation” are also responsible for making the education system more lax, which has lead to the millions of “dumb youth” they’ve complained about? Did I also forget to mention that this same generation is responsible for first planting the concept of “you can do anything” into our brain?

How foolish we must have seemed! We listened to our elders! Those who said that we’re special and can do great things in the world!

But if we hadn’t listened to those who came before us, we wouldn’t be called “narcissistic.” We’d be called “distant”, “solitary”, “isolationists” or some other term that would grant the Greatest Generation the leave to wipe their hands of the mess they’ve created.

Ah, foolish me for saying anything bad about those who fought in the bloodiest and most preventable war in Human history. Perhaps it’s the result of the piss-poor education they’ve allowed, despite the $20,000 I paid after high school to become the anal-retentive prick that I all-too-often appear to be. Next time I’ll just make racial or sexually-oriented slurs to keep those who came before me happy.

It’s Not All About Us

Whether this person likes or dislikes blogs is really none of my concern. My main beef is with the misconception this paper allows by passing on such ill-researched articles of personal opinion. Heck, the author of this editorial is probably pissed off because they see the younger journalists and average person has a greater reach and more influence than the once great Chicago Tribune.

Print media is dying a slow and painful death, but not because of the internet. Rather than leverage the potential of this information super-highway, a large number of editors and boards of directors are sticking their head in the sand over their coming extinction.

People have blogs for any number of reasons. People post their content for any number of reasons. To say that every single blogger or micro-blogger is just talking about themselves is like saying that every Baby-boomer is selfishly taking advantage of health care. While there are some that certainly reduce the credibility of the masses, they are the exception rather than the rule.

Either way, the Chicago Tribune certainly got what it was looking for. Lots of back-links, and lots of traffic from us so-called self-absorbed and narcissistic fools.

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