I've been programming too much lately. How do I know? Well, I was counting my holidays today, and I started counting: "zero, one, two,.."
March 2009
Accelerator
It's strange, but my life never really manages to stabilize around the same level. It always really sucks or it's really great. And on that note: after three months of total inactivity life suddenly seems to have gained some momentum again. In the next two months I will be doing skydiving, a trip to South Africa (possibly!) and a trip to Bangkok (possibly!). As the Chinese would say: "Fa Kin Su Pa!".
Besides that I've had a fairly lazy weekend. I've been trying to make sense out of the new book I bought on digital image processing, but I'm still lacking on the math part of the book. What I really need is a 'fourier transform for dummies' book, but it doesn't seem to exist.. Still, it's fairly interesting material (if not a bit dry) and it managed to fill in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. Not entirely, but at least I know now where to get more information whenever I run into a problem that I can't solve. A lot of hyperlinks have been added in my brain, even if I don't yet fully understand the theory.
Last unrelated note: been watching Higurashi no Naku koro ni and it's sequel. I love it. I'm also watching Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo which is hilarious at times and sometimes a parody of the genre in itself. Still, I'm really looking for something a bit darker. It's been a while since I've seen an anime the likes of Ergo Proxy or Kaiba, and I do miss that. I guess I'd better look some more. I've been 'away' from anime for the past 1 or 2 years, and I thought I had lost my interest. After recently picking it up again I've realized that it's pretty much impossible for me to lose interest in anime. The variety is just too large: there's always something I'm bound to be interested in.
Finally, to add in a bit of photography to this post: there seems to be a photography convention in Tokyo at the end of this month, and it seems that all the big companies are showing up. I might drop by to take a look as well. I can't say I've gone out of my way to try and take great pictures lately, but I'm still interested in the new stuff. Canon's new tilt-shift lenses in particular look brilliant, but I'd need a fortune to own one, and I'm not quite ready to spend that much on my hobby. Quite the contrary, in fact: I've been playing with some micro four-thirds cameras and I really like them. They're so tiny but still so useful. If I didn't have all this Canon equipment already I would consider switching to that, but I already have too much stuff and I don't want to get rid of it. Even my old Canon 400D camera is still working wonders. The 400D is actually quite light and small. I've been using it in combination with the huge 800mm mirror lens and it works perfectly. The balance and weight is just perfect, and my pictures come out noticably sharper because the center of balance lies more closer to the lens and I have to use less force to point it in the right direction. Hurray for small cameras!
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Daily Life
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Photography
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Tech
Waku Waku Boom Boom
Here's some HDR pics of today. As you can probably see from the images I gave up on Photoshop and I'm now using Photomatix' HDR for idiots functions. They fit me a lot better!
Cleaned my room today. I threw out a lot of stuff I didn't need, including a lot of food that had expired, some items even years ago... >_<; Oh well, it feels a lot better now that I've cleaned that up. Not owning a lot is fun! I keep thinking about what else I can throw away :D
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Daily Life
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Photography
The new economy
These days it's become pretty much impossible to avoid confrontation with the economical crisis. No matter where you go, online or offline, you're bound to bump into it one way or another. Layoffs, news reports on companies reporting their losses, casual tasks between people: all signs point in the same direction: the world economy is going down.
Or is it? Which part of the world economy is going down, exactly? Certainly the areas that have been the most affected are the automotive industry, with the high-tech hardware/gadgets coming in at second place. Most banks aren't doing too well either. That's quite understandable. When people are being told from all directions that the world economy is collapsing then they are bound to try to save money, especially on expensive items like cars and gadgets. And people lose their trust in the banks. Company debts increase and forced layoffs are the result, as can be seen in many companies all over the world, including and perhaps especially here in Japan, the country that has been hit hard by this 'crisis'. Banks simply have no money and go bankrupt, or are bought out by other banks or governments. Stock markets are falling. And through all of these events the public media eagerly blows all the related news greatly out of proportion resulting in even less consumer confidence and an even bigger crisis. Well done, world.
So far, so bad. But perhaps we can see the events in a slightly more positive light. Take the stock markets, for example. They've been around for centuries, and they've always been sufficient, in one way or another, in stimulating the world economy. Lately though, and when I say lately I mean for the past ten to twenty years, there's been speculation that the stock markets as they are now can never again reach the same peaks as they have reached before. Perhaps this is a lack of confidence in the market, or it can be taken as a sign that the current system is no longer sufficient, or representative, of current world affairs. Perhaps it's a sign that something new needs to grow out of this. Something similar could be said of the automotive industry, with the end of the oil era in sight, even if not in reality, it's a thought that can no longer be repressed from people's minds. Cars are now linked in our minds to wasting resources, and that's not this millenium's 'theme'.
Only nine years old, this millenium's theme so far has been 'be green, save resources, care for the planet'. Use what you have sparingly and wisely, then you may be granted access to heaven. If heaven itself can spare you a place, that is. Interestingly enough, in the IT sector exactly the opposite situation is occurring. We no longer have to care about any of those pesky real-life limitations, and we are rapidly approaching utopia. I'm talking here about storage space, bandwidth limitations, processor speeds. Network connections are becoming ever more faster, more available (wireless) and more free. Think modern-day mobile phones: they're portable PCs, capable of doing anything you could possibly want to do on such a tiny device, and that includes activities like watching a movie and surfing the internet. Flash memory is affordable enough these days that we can afford to carry 50 movies on our mobile phone whenever we want. While the digital world is approaching utopia the real world is spiraling down into more crisis.
I think it's a growth spurt. I think that since World War 2 man's lifestyle had not been significantly changed, up until the advent of the internet and the digital revolution. Right now we are trying to reconciliate the new and the old ways, without much success. As a case in point I would mention public transportation, and more specifically the differences between a country like the Netherlands (or the US, I guess) and Japan. The Netherlands have been trying to introduce a fully automatic electronic system for their public transportation, but they've had no luck so far, partly because of technical problems, and partly because the state of public transportation in Holland is simply not as advanced as it is in Japan. Some countries rely on cars, but a country like Japan proves how efficient a good public transportation system could be. New technologies make these kinds of things possible.
Another example is the movie and music industry's resistence to the internet and file sharing in general. There's a fairly interesting court case that concerns The Pirate Bay, a torrent website used to get movies and albums, who are accused of distributing copyrighted material. The movie industry is still fighting something that can no longer be stopped. The movie industry as a whole will eventually be transformed by this new medium, and thirty to fourty years from now movies will be distributed quite differently. Still, movie theater's did not appear when the TV became commonplace, people still buy CDs even when they can copy them, so who knows how it'll turn out eventually.
Then there's companies like Google, who try to use old-school business tactics in a new world. Google makes money through ads. I think Google has a pretty good reputation, and many people have only good things to say about the company and its products. But when you think about it, they make their money by showing you something that 99% of the time you are not interested in. That's not a service, that's a disservice. And a remnant of the 'old' method of showing commercials on TV. It was ok in the 80s and early 90s (at least in Holland), but when you watch something on TV these days the commercial blocks take more of your time than the actual content, and I'm really worried that Google wants to turn the internet into something similar. Still, they do what they can to profit in these times of crisis, and because the internet is floroushing they get away with it, especially compared to other companies who are not as smart.
But that's not the way to go. I think the current economical crisis is showing us that we really cannot go on like this any longer. The system as it is, is at the end of its lifetime, and it's time for change. Very soon we will see large changes in our economical system, our transportation system and even our daily entertainment and communication will be greatly different from what the generation before us was used to. This is not just an economical crisis, this is the beginning of the true technological revolution and the first sign of a real-life utopia. Or, as a programmer might say, World 2.0.
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Thoughts
Chinese chess
I have a warning for everyone. When you find yourself suddenly playing chess against a Chinese person, be careful that you not lose!
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Daily Life
Professional Pride and a Programmer's Arrogance
I've been watching some presentations made by famous programmers / software engineers recently. The thing I noticed most is that all of the really good programmers seem very confident, almost up until the point of arrogance. I think that in programming, the more knowledge you gain, the more you realize how much you really know about programming. And when I say programming, I mean all aspects of it, starting from use-casing through design all the way to implementation. The more you program, the more you know which things you don't know. The amount of uncertainty about your skill level decreases as you get better. One might say that this also holds true for other professions, especially when dealing with the exact sciences, but I think programming in particular stands out as a good example of this.
Taking pride in your work is very important, also for a programmer. But sometimes there are occassions when there are conflicts with what you want to do and what should be done, or what you think should be done and what the company thinks should be done. These conflicts could be ethical. Perhaps not as world-shocking as Einstein's dilemma concerning the atomic bomb, but just concerning personal ethics instead. A couple of years ago I was working on a program in Java related to networking and web sites. I won't go into details here, but it was the kind of program that went completely against the netiquette. The actual effect of the program was pretty harmless, but it was made with evil intent. In retrospect I think I should not have worked on the program at all, but at the time I was just very happy that I could put all my programming experience to good use. It was a chance for me to develop myself as a professional and I took it. I am no longer in touch with the people I made the program for, but I suspect the idea behind it failed, or perhaps they saw reason.
That's an example of when personal ethics can conflict with programming. Another example is one that most programmers have faced or will face in the future: the company and you both want something different. Maybe they want you to spend less time on your program design, or they want you to write your program in a different way that, in your opinion, makes less sense than what you think yourself. There's many ways to deal with such a situation. The worst programmers do as they like and defy the company's will, setting up a bad image for themselves. Good programmers know how to balance their own needs and the company's needs, and they will find the perfect compromise. The best programmers just quit and start their own company.
I'm guilty of over-engineering. I have a 'little baby' in the company and I want to protect it. I can't stand the thought of having a released product that has bugs inside. Every time someone reports a bug I want to fix it as soon as possible. As a consequence, I tend to release less and less frequently because I want things to be perfect before I release, and I end up spending way too much time on a 'perfect' design, when in fact an adequate design will do. Never forget the key rules:
- Release early, release often
- Keep it simple, stupid
- Not every problem needs a perfect solution
Opinions? Comments?
Acid rain trip
That is to say, I went on a cycling trip and there was rain and now my eyes feel acid-y.
Stats: Atsugi --> Beach (10.6km): 33m. Average speed: 16.74km/h. Top speed: 44km/h (?!)
Stats: Beach --> Atsugi (13.28km): 54m. Average speed: 12.91km/h. Top speed: 31km/h
Jjudging from today's stats and last time's stats it would seem that there is a height difference in favor of the Atsugi-->Beach direction is more significant than I thought. Not that it would matter to anyone else but me..
Cycling at night is nice. Usually cycling in the sun it's too hot, and during the day there's too much traffic. There's almost no traffic at night. This is a good thing, because I cannot seem to find the willpower any more to get out of bed early. On the other hand, cycling at night has a certain craziness to it that kind of makes it fun.
The hairy bicycle gaijin strikes again! Muhahahaha!
I made this today at work. I don't know why, I already have one exactly like this.
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Cycling
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Daily Life
I observe
I finally got bored enough to visit facebook again today, after several months away from it. I can't say I miss it really. Social networking sites are not my thing, I guess. I'm just too lazy to keep track of everything. The same thing happened to my facebook profile as did to my Hattrick.org football team: it got neglected. But it still survives. Oh well. I took the liberty today of adding a particularly hairy picture of myself on Facebook.
In other news: I went to Akihabara last Sunday. The last couple of times I went I did not like it at all anymore, and I was just not interested in anything anime or manga-related. This time though, I quite enjoyed my trip. I found a couple of new toy stores, and one of them had a huge collection of Transformers, including some rare ones over 20000 yen. I have no urge at all to buy anything though, not Transformers, not anime, not manga. I used to buy artbooks but I feel like downloading them these days. At least they're more portable that way. Still, the annoying but uplifting songs, the weird Japanese people, the Turkish kebab places (thank you Turkish people kebab is the best!) and the ugly girls in maid costumes make for an interesting experience. I'm rediscovering my otaku roots! :D
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Daily Life
Chaotic Neutral
According to the wisdoms of the internets, my personality appears to be of the 'Chaotic Neutral' variety.
A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. The chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). The common phrase for chaotic neutral is "true chaotic." Remember that the chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom both from society’s restrictions and from a do-gooder’s zeal.Which one are you?
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Company morals (or lack thereof)
I'm quite disappointed in Google. They recently announced that they made a deal with RealNetworks, who will be bundling the Google Chrome browser together with their video software. I find this amazing because I did not expect this from Google. Anyone who's been on the internet for a while can tell you that RealNetworks is a rather disgusting company, and their software is historically known for being crappy and full of spyware. I can't say I tried their software recently, so perhaps it may have improved over the years, but the image of Real has not changed. Their a sleazy company, and their products are disliked by pretty much everyone I know. Not to mention that bundling one piece of software with another, only vaguely related software is a practice that is generally hated by everyone online.
So why did google do it? For the money, of course. Google's main source of revenue is ads. Recently we've been seeing ads on youtube, even inside videos, and I'm sure it won't be long until we start seeing google ads in realplayer too. The move to bundle Chrome with RealPlayer is even more strange when you consider that Google has always been claiming that they're not really in the browser market to compete, but only because they 'want to increase competition in the browser market, to improve innovation'. How in the hell are advertisements and semi-forced usage of a browser innovation!?!
Google is about nice, clean web-pages. Comfort and ease of use. I love the Chrome browser and I could not live without GMail. But it's moves like this that make it more and more clear that Google is turning into a big, evil company, which will eventually have nothing else but profit that drives it. Be careful Google, if you continue down this path much further, then there will be other, younger companies that will take up where you left off, and they will do it better than you.
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Tech