Alright, I’ll be leaving for Tokyo tomorrow. First time I’ll ever step foot into Japan, so I’m pretty darn excited about it. I really should be packing, but instead I’m writing this just to give everyone a little teaser of what’s to come.

I’ve decided that this site needs some major revamp, and I’ll be changing things after I return from the trip. The blog may or may not exist, depending on how things work out. As you might have noticed, I’ve sort of lost interest in writing blog posts. To be honest, having my life, or even the slightest parts of it, outlined on public domain for everyone’s viewing pleasure, is not the least appealing to me. I want a presence on the Interweb, but perhaps a blog is not the best means.

Might I add that Wordpress seems a bit broken to me, with errors popping up here and there in the admin section, even right after posting. Could be due to the fact that I keep upgrading to the latest trunk builds that aren’t even stable without bothering to check for compatibilty.

That said, I’ll be doing my last bit of writing from the heart of Tokyo. I’ll post updates on the stuffs that takes place during my trip, complete with photographs! So look forward to that, ya.

Alright, last minute packing to do, and I’m all set. Till then…

There’s going to be some changes taking place. Watch this spot.

I haven’t been writing as of late, and frankly I don’t have anything I want to talk about or discuss. I did assemble myself a new computer. I’m overwhelmingly satisfied with it, considering that the whole set-up only cost me (my dad) S$747 and is a good 3-5 times faster than my previous one. 2GB of memory does help.

Specs are as follows. (i.e. I bought the following. Other parts not listed were re-used from old computer.)

• Intel Dual-Core E2160 Allendale 1.8GHz LGA 775 Processor
• 2 x 1GB Corsair Valuram
• GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard
• Leadtek WinFast PX8600GT 256MB DDR3 Zalman Fan
• Verudium PowerXT V-480XT
• Cooler Master Centurion 5 Case

The CPU runs at a stock of 1.80 Ghz (that’s gigahertz, 1.8 billion cycles per second). Being the enthusiast that I am, I overclocked it to 3.00 Ghz. Here’s a screenshot for you.

Want to compare how fast yours is? Download Superpi and calculate 1M decimal places. Take your timing and compare. Mine is 21.000s.

I have no idea how it scales, but I’m quite sure that if your timing is twice as fast as mine it doesn’t mean your computer is twice as fast. It is, though, a good indication of relative speed (i.e. my computer is FASTER than yours).

Do find out what stuff your computer’s running on with CPU-Z.

This ought to be common knowledge: the term “Jap” is derogatory. So please, my friends, stop using it, be it to prefix words or to name them in general. Use “Jdrama” or “JPN” instead, or say “Japanese” in full.

If you’re not convinced, perhaps you should read through this forum thread. From what I’ve skimmed of the first few pages, the following points were made:

• Many native Japanese do find this term offensive. Increasingly, awareness of the racism of the term is also on the rise, and many non-natives find it offensive.
• It can be seen as a “parallel to the “n word” for people of African descent or “gook” to those of Vietnamese and Korean descent”. Although it does not have as severe a connotation as it’s parallels, its usage should be avoided.
• Older Japanese (and non-natives) are more likely to take offense. This is due to the fact that they lived during the WWII and post-WWII period.
  

  back in WWII, propaganda against the japanese was everywhere…
  so they had things like “Kill the J**s” etc… sounds more powerful than using the word japanese.. single syllable easier to remember and pronouce too…can scream the word out too when delivering a propaganda speech… dun think it would be as powerful if you had shout the word “japanese”

  I just want to say that the use of the term “jap” in pretty much any context is almost criminally offensive in the Japanese American community I belong to. This is because I live on the west coast and many of the people who were rounded up and thrown in internment camps during WWII are still alive here. While it is true that the term may be used on very rare occasions by those of Japanese decent it is still considered derrogatory and is only used by those people who were actually alive during the war. We, as a community, have tried to eradicate the use of the word rather than incorporate and assimilate it to take the pain out of it.

I hope you’re convinced.

160 characters is a very irritating limit, and we are stuck with it for a long time, whether we like it or not.

There are few alternatives to standard SMS, one of which is email. In fact, in Japan, email is used in place of SMS. This is because their networks are almost entirely 3G, highly tuned for high bandwidth transfer. I doubt they use GSM at all. However, the move to email presents 2 big problems.

One thing that bugs the hell out of me is the limit on the number of characters you can input into one sms: 160. That is less than the number of characters in the first two sentences of this post.