Japan trip report

I just got back from Japan recently and finally have some time to blog about it. I went for 17 days and had a great time.

If you've never visited Japan, I recommend it. There's lots of cool things about the city and culture that are worth experiencing. I remember the first time I went in 1991, not knowing what to expect, and my whole perspective on the United States changed forever. I always assumed we were the most advanced country on earth (I was young and naive back in those days). That's not to say Japan is perfect, but there are many great things there that I wish would make it's way to the USA.

One of the best things about Japan is the food. I'm not talking about fugu or high priced sushi or anything fancy. I'm talking about Japanese fast food, donut shops, pastry shops and even food from 7-11. Just about anything you try there will be good and the service will be good. Plus there's no tipping!

Here's a pict of one of my favorite places. "Mister Donut". Cheap, good coffee and a cute japanese girl comes by every few minutes to refill your coffee. What more could you want?

The infamous "Cocoa Float" at a great fast food place called "First Kitchen". If you're ever in Japan, you MUST try this. It's awesome.

Starbucks has a green tea frappuccino that is delicious:

During the trip I met up with some fellow mac developers living in Japan. One day we went to Kamakura to visit a Zen temple and sat in for a session of zazen. It was one of the most famous Zen temples. I can't remember the name at the moment.

I'm interested in Zen, but I'm too lazy to practice it. Maybe some day. One thing interesting happened during zazen. There were about 40-50 people there and we were all sitting down and the priest walks around carrying a big stick. If a person gestures to the priest, the priest will whack the guy on the back. But the problem is every other person requested getting whacked on the back so it was really hard to meditate with so much noise. I couldn't focus!

Here's a pict of me and one of my developer friends waiting to eat awesome Japanese beef stew in Kamakura.

I also stopped by my friends office to see what's its like to be a developer working in Japan. The office was very tiny, but it was cozy and enough room for a desk and monitor and stuff. (not the best pict, but the office was so tiny it was hard to get anything in frame)

Like a good geek I had to take a trip to Akihabara which is the mecca of the infamous "Otaku". Akihabara is home to the "maid cafe" phenomenon. Here's a maid on the street begging me to taste her treats. I found out later that the best looking maids are inside, but they are extremely strict about taking photographs. I was forced to erase a picture I took inside by an angry maid.

We visited a few Maid cafes and they were fun. It's wasn't what I expected. It's really quite normal except for the fact that the waitresses wear costumes. All the customers where normal people men and women. I expected there would be tons of geeks drooling over the maids, but it's wasn't like that at all. Good food and service.

I'm kind of perplexed how so many shops there are in Akiba selling dolls and figures. There are tons of them and all packed to the roof. Who buys this stuff? It's all very cute and fun, but in order for these places to all stay in business there must be tons of Otaku buying lots of figurines. They sell everything thing at these stores. Doll clothes, hair, doll paint. Once again it was hard to take a picture since the spaces where so cramped and tight with stuff. Here's some bare dolls you can buy and you can design your own anime character.

Here's another pict of one display case. The store is packed wall to wall with cases of figures. I just noticed the "no camera" sign on the left side.

Another shot of display cases stuffed with stuff.

We had lunch at the famous Otaku food stand. Star Kebab.

Me and the gang hanging out inside the Star Kebab.

We walked by this business which offers a high tech face massage given by a maid. I regret not trying it!

There were also lots of shops selling vintage game systems from the 80s and 90s.

Here's a classic. I wonder why it never took off?

Some vintage hand held game systems:

We also visited this vintage arcade. Every machine there was filled with almost every known game ROM imaginable. All the classics in one place.

Before the Otaku took over Akiba, it was home (and still is) to vendors selling every conceivable electronic part or device. You can find any type of resistor, switch, capacitor etc. There are rows and rows of these little one man shops no bigger than 6x6 stuffed to max with electronics with a little old man sitting behind it all selling day after day.

I only bought one thing in Akiba. This killer mask for my son Kai. It was only $2.

Here's a pict that really illustrates why Japan is awesome. This is a toilet on the public train. No graffiti, no trash, clean and safe. It wouldn't last 1 day in San Francisco. In SF they locked all the public toilets in the train stations for "Security Reasons" Where do they expect the bums to shoot heroin?

Here's the family in front of some Cherry blossoms. There were blooming why we were there.

Bought my kid another mask. His hero is Ultraman!

The toilet on the Bullet train for Gaijin like me.

My brother in-law is also a Mac user. He does page layout for game magazines and has a hardcore setup.

Here he is wearing the Steve Jobs uniform

My sister in-law is an awesome cook. Here's your typical Japanese high rise Kitchen.

Another thing great about Japan is the CD and DVD shops. Everything you could ever want and you can rent them. Most people rent them, copy them and return them the next day. It's super cheap.

My sister has this great place in Tokyo near Shinagawa station. They're on the top floor and have a great view of Tokyo.

Well, that's it. There was lots I didn't mention, but those were some highlights. Just like anything, you have to experience it. There's lots to see and do.

We need beta testers!

One of the more difficult things about being an independent software developer is making sure your software is as bug-free as possible. Note that I didn’t just say “bug-free” - if you believe the mythical completely bug-free application actually exists, I have some bridges, magic beans, and unicorns I’d like to sell you.

We ♥ you

Seriously, though, we couldn’t do what we do without the kindness of you, our customers. We rely on your feature requests to tell us what to work on, your license fees to help us feed our families and keep us in business, and your bug reports to help us fix Path Finder when it does something it’s not supposed to.

We already have an awesome group of folks helping us test Path Finder behind the scenes before we roll out a new release to the public, but we need help. With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 we are now in that strange and wonderful place where Path Finder supports two operating systems, and with that comes an even more complex testing environment.

We need you

We need your help kicking the tires whenever Steve adds a new feature, improves a new one, or rolls out a bug fix or workaround. Almost 60% of you have upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5, but that leaves 40% of you that are still using Mac OS X 10.4 and we need to make sure both operating systems (and both CPU types) are represented in our beta testing group.

Interested?

Here are the specifics:

• Beta testing is, for the moment, purely voluntary. We’ve talked about finding fun ways of thanking our beta testers but at the moment if you decide to help us, it’s for the love of playing with the most recent, cutting edge builds of Path Finder.
• Beta testing is inherently risky. You must follow the tao of backing up your system frequently. We try not to provide beta builds that could cause your computer to implode, but stuff happens.
• We require you to be involved. Obviously everyone is busy and the amount of involvement that any single person can commit to is variable, but we still expect that you’ll let us know if you find a bug and try to get us feedback when we need it.
• It’s all confidential. We don’t generally release beta builds to the public for a reason: they’re not ready for public consumption. We hope and expect that you’ll honour this by not sharing download URLs, builds, or any other pre-release information with people not on the list.
• Beta testing is open to licensed Path Finder 4 customers only. For now, at least.

We thank you

Update: Thank you! We got lots of applications and we’re digging through them now. We will get in touch with you if you were selected. Thanks a lot for your willingness to help us!

Macworld Blast Party

It's a little late to be blogging about Macworld, but I've been busy coding like mad on Path Finder 5 and haven't had much time to devote to the blog.

So after Macworld, I went to the MacSB dinner and it was cool. Met a bunch of interesting Cocoa devs and had a nice dinner. I went back to my office to get my things and was skating to the Muni station to head home when I ran into it to my old friend Nobi. It was a total coincidence. Nobi said he's going to the Macworld Blast party and said he could get me a ticket. So I'm like "Sure, why not." Little did I know at the time how cool it was going to be.

So, first stop was at a little bar on the corner of Yerba Buena Gardens to get some free drinks and to get our tickets. There was this wacky drunk out of her mind old lady hitting on me telling me how cute I was (she must have been drunk). It was pretty hilarious. She was asking me if I liked Elvis Presley and she could barely stand. I guess she was looking to score :) It was very weird. I kept looking at Nobi hoping he would save me from this awkward situation. Luckily the bus to the Warfield had arrived and I politely ran out as fast as I could.

So we get on the bus heading to Warfield. I've never been there before, but it's a famous place for bands to play in downtown San Francisco. We get off the bus and wait in line and eventually get in.

So before the show started, Microsoft had their Office for Mac 2008 launch party which was really cool. They gave away tons of free stuff. They were throwing stuff out into the crowd and I happened to catch a leather iPhone case. They also gave away an iMac and a bunch of other cool things.

Everyone got two tickets for free drinks, so I got my drinks and waited for the main event. DEVO!!

The show starts off with this amazingly trippy video. I loved it and took a short clip. The video got cut short since a security guy tapped me on the shoulder and said "No filming". I've seen a few other videos on YouTube with the complete video, but here's the footage I got...

Here's the sign out front of the Warfield

Here's the ticket

Here's another sign out front

Microsoft launch party pict

DEVO!

After the show Nobi and I met up with some of his Japanese friends. A young Japanese girl in the group had no idea who DEVO was which was kind of funny. I guess I'm old. After the show I met up with my friend and fellow mac developer Steve Dekorte at the Cafe Royale. DEVO was awesome. I had no idea they still could rock the house. The sound was great and an all around amazing show.

HD DVD Dead: Who Cares?

I have no interest in the HD DVD / Blu-ray war. I would never consider buying a new format when I have had such a horrible experience with the original DVD format.

Wouldn't it be great if after inserting a DVD it just immediately played the movie? That's what I want, but the content producers force you to wait for FBI warnings, previews, disclaimers, fancy animations, and a bunch of other annoying graphics and menus before the movie starts.

The worst offender is Disney. I can't remember the exact disk, but even after hitting the play button in the DVDs menus, no less than 6 additional annoying graphics played before the movie starts. Disney digital, THX audio, etc. I don't remember the exactly what was played, I just remember being shocked. Just to watch the movie I had to hit the next button 6 or 7 times.

I own a few japanese DVDs that do immediately play the movie on insertion, but they are rare.

I bought the DVD to watch the movie, not this additional crap.

I was at the bus stop this morning in San Francisco and Disney had a billboard saying "101 Dalmatians, now for the first time on 2 disks". Why would anyone want 2 disks? 2 disks of crap that takes forever to navigate. I just want the movie and nothing more.

This is why I'm through buying DVDs.