happylife

Parallel's world

This is the screen capture of my recent desktop. My computing environment has dramatically improved last week thanks to "Paralles Desktop" which is one of the most popular virtual machine software for Mac. It can create some so-called "virtual PCs" on your Macintosh computer so that you can run other OS including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Linux. Sure, I had heard a lot about it, but I didn't install it on my Mac because I was skeptical about its performance. Now, I'm regretting about my prejudice. It is way better than I expected. It is true that a virtual machine cannot be faster than a real machine on which it is running. However, in some cases on Parallels Desktop, it seems to be faster thanks to its clever algorithm. For example, XP can be restarted on Paralles in a few seconds while a real PC requires a few minutes. As you know and as you might get tired, Windows requires to be restarted several times a day and it consumes your precious minutes every day. It can be a great help for you. Another benefit of this great software is that you can make snapshots of your virtual machine whenever you like and you can get back to the point you captured the snapshot. It means that you can roll back to the past in case you made a critical mistake or your Windows hanged up. I think the world of Windows will gradually fall off and more and more people will start to transfer to Mac because you can even use Windows on your Mac just when you really need it.

How to cancel the Sony timer

The morning before last, when I got up, I switched on my main note PC, Sony Vaio as usual and got upset because nothing came out on its diplay. As I had a perfect data back up and I was just on the way to change my main computing environment from XP on this note PC to so-called a virtual machine on Mac, my up set was limited; I had no problem both in my business and private life except that I couldn't use my computer outside my room. I tried to recover the stopped PC somehow by following the trouble shooting instructions on the Sony's support site but in vain. I cursed the accuracy of the so-called "Sony timer" -- as you might know, Sony's products have a timer which stop their functions just after the warranty expired. For all my effort, it didn't recover and I almost gave up. As the repair fee offered by Sony was impossible, I almost decided to dispose the PC which I had used for three years. What I did as my last trial was to give it a physical shock by dropping it from 30 cm above the floor, and incredibly it worked! Yes, my note PC began to work again. If you suffered from the Sony time problem, I think you should try this way before giving up.

Walking around Tokyo

Walking around Tokyo is one of my recent favorite things. Tokyo has surely become an ugly and unattractive city, but it's an undeniable fact that it is my home town where I am living now again. A wise man should face the facts. It's not so difficult to find something beautiful in this ugly world. The best way to do that is to change our view points a little; by looking at things from very low angle, very closely or just by looking up, we can find new aspects of things. I think a portable digital camera is a good tool to help us change our view points. This daisy flower, for example, was just a daisy when I looked down from my standing point of view, however, when I got as close as possible, it became a super mysterious object. We can't live a life every day because things are always changing, but we often misunderstand that our daily life is always the same and therefore boring. We should not forget that what makes us bored is in ourselves.

His days are numbered

This is a typical TV antenna which we can often see all around Japan. He looks bent with his age and actually his life has only three years left. By the summer of 2011, he is supposed to be scrapped -- not only he, but also all the antennas in the country. The government has decided to change the TV broadcasting waves fully from analog to digital within three years from now. Sure, the benefit of digital broadcasting is attractive; a lot of Hi-Vision programs and data can be delivered on a limited width of radio wave. However, I am skeptical whether it is worth while to abandon millions of analog antennas and even TV sets. It's really a great waste, but what I worry more is that the related technologies are still in a transition period; there are a lot of other possibilities which are better than the present digital protocols, we don't have clear images about the digital communication in the near future and the old-fashioned copyright laws need to be revised. I think the decision was unusually too early.

Cursed week

It is my birthday week, but it is also one of the most cursed weeks in the year for Japanese drivers. The spring traffic safety campaign is held by police every year all around the country and quite a few drivers and riders are caught. If you drove now just in the usual manner, you would possibly be accused falsely by the officer deployed every block. Actually my past violation records are concentrated in this season when the warm weather best for riding comes. This rider in a blue uniform and on a white motorcycle is called "Shiro-bi" which means white motorcycle in Japanese. He is the worst enemy for us good citizens; he hides on a back alley, aims at an unhappy driver out of caprice, chases him or her at much faster speed than his prey and easily catches it. I think it is the only way to avoid this damage from him not to drive in this week in Japan.

Hay fever

The other day, I heard an interesting story about hay fever on a radio program. As you know, quite a few people in Japan are suffering from hay fever and are obliged to wear masks. There are so many people wearing masks that you can't distinguish a bank robber in a crowd. Hay is not actually the criminal in Japan's case and everyone knows that the real culprit is cedar pollen. Where did it come from then? About two thirds of Japan's land is forest and almost half of it is artificial, cedar forest. Originally, cedar is not a strong tree and less than 20% is the natural ratio of cedar trees against other trees including maple, beech and so on. It was the government official who started to plant cedar after The World War II. It was not a bad decision in the beginning because cedar was useful as a building material, but the problem, which can be called as their crime, was that they kept planting cedar trees over and over again after they found that too many cedar causes a lot of problems -- unnaturally increased cedar trees produce much pollen every year causing hay fever. As they are originally weak trees with short roots, mountains of ceder forests can easily cause landslides and floods. Also, Japanese cedar trees as building materials are out-pushed by foreign, reasonable trees.

A crime of conscience

It is reported that the Olympic-Torch relay was mixed up in London and Paris. Flame-bearers were often stopped by a lot of obstructions and especially in Paris, the fire was distinguished twice despite the tight security by the Government of France. The torch was protected by dozens of armored vehicles, hundreds of police officers in roller blades and police motorcycles. It looked ridiculous and over-investment, but was not enough because the fire was actually distinguished. It is impossible that the exaggerated security couldn't protect only a tiny torch. I guess it was a crime of conscience or a sharp esprit by French people including the Government. The fire might have been distinguished deliberately. The fact that the fire as the symbol of peace could not be protected by the arms impressed the world and the more people are getting critical to the Chinese attitude towards Tibetans. If the Chinese attitude would change by these incidents, it can be said that the Olympic was made use of world peace.

To drink colder

The other day, I had lunch in a Thai restaurant in Tokyo. The menu items were good, but what impressed me more was the other thing; it was rather a hot spring day and an iced tea was served in a metal cup. We usually have something cold with a glass or ceramic cup. I think it's rare to use metal cup. Actually I have no metal cup except for a camping gear. I think it is because a metal cup is not suitable to have hot drinks because it becomes too hot. It is not good either to drink something cold because it easily forms dew on its surface and wet table. However, it is very pleasant to have cold drink with a metal cup on a hot day because the cool metal feeling on your lips will make you feel way cooler than a glass or a ceramic cup. The cup in the Thai restaurant had a saucer to avoid dews and I could fully enjoy the benefit of the metal cup. How about the idea to make a ceramic cup with a metal part? -- Whole part is made of ceramic except the area lips touch so that it has the cool metal feeling with no dews.

Between spring and autumn

The weather pattern of this year in Tokyo seems to have been the best for cherry blossoms. The warm days in the middle of last month followed by the ordinary cool weather since the end of March brought the gorgeous cherry blossoms and hold them for a couple of weeks. As it is the first experience for me to see Japanese cherry blossoms in the last few years, they look more beautiful and is even touching. It is really enjoyable to walk under the trees, look up at them and sometimes take pictures of them. Anyway, spring does not come only for cherry trees; I found these blossoms which are not so conspicuous as cherry blossoms. As you know, this tree is maple. The leaves are going to glow until this autumn and change their color into red. In this picture, I spotlit this autumn star on the background of cherry pink. This is my spirit of perversity.