Archive for the 'General' Category

General posts

Thanks, Sony

Sadly, TiVo and its ultra-intuitive user interface is not available in Japan, but there are plenty of similar devices, called "DVR" here (Digital Video Recorder). We have a Sony BDZ-X90 unit that we bought a year or so ago. Its list of features and functions is huge, exceeded only by its ridiculously high pricetag.

Anyway, it worked just fine until five days after the warranty expired, when suddenly only the display worked (and only to show "System Error"). A call to Sony confirmed that it would have to be sent in for service, so I dropped it off at a [...]
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Common Sense: Blinded by Math

It's amazing how many people can talk themselves into believing something that's obviously wrong.

The other day the following question was posted on a widely-read programming blog by Jeff Atwood:

It quickly got almost 1,000 comments with people arguing about what the correct answer is.

Common sense tells us that gender of an unknown person is a 50/50 proposition. You strike up a conversation with someone who says "yeah, I've got two kids...." and you know that there's a 50/50 chance as to the gender of each kid. The person continuing "... and that's my daughter on the swing" has [...]
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Grab-n-Go Meal

Two years ago during our New Year's break we went to a ryokan on the Ise peninsula, after which I posed about the great quantities of great food we were served. From the seaside balcony of our room on that trip, I happened to catch a few frames of a bird of prey taking the easy route and going with a prepared meal (stealing from a crow) instead of catching one itself....

This was two years ago not only in terms of time, but in equipment and skill as well, so the shots aren't great, but I thought it was [...]


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Kyoto’s Haunted Hua Huan Museum

As I've mentioned lately, I've taken to heading up to Shogunzuka to try to catch the sunset in hopes of getting lucky and being able to photograph one that's spectacular. During the five-minute drive home one day recently, I noticed this view...

That big building in the background looks totally decrepit, and despite having driving by it a bazillion times, I'd not noticed it until now. I find these kinds of places somewhat fascinating, and along the same lines, posted Abandoned House Returning To Nature last month, and about the razing of an Old House of Bamboo and Mud last [...]


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Life and Death of a Small Wooden Tower

One of the rooms at the "Otsu Yumekko" (a nearby playland we visited in February) is set aside for playing with Kapla planks. They have thousands of them, and the space is large, so it was like a mini Dubai with all the various construction going on...

Each big box holds 1,000 pieces, and runs about 400 bucks! They had plenty.

One guy was making a tall tower with a little boy...

Knowing that a kid that young severely shortens the life span of anything built with balance, I kept one eye on them prepared to catch the inevitable collapse.

[...]
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