HiraTomo’s Neighborhood

I am migrating my English blog to:

ひどくなると熱も出てくる喉の不調。喉が痛い時や違和感がある時、どんな物で対策しますか？

1. エキナセアのハーブティーを飲みます。液体のエキナセアが手に入る場合は、更におすすめ。ニールズヤードで手に入るかなぁ？

greenz.jpの記事が続いてしまったけれど、
こんなアイディアもあるのね、ということでpost。

象のウンチがステキな紙に！ @greenz.jp

『ぞうのエルマー』は、子どもの頃に大好きだった絵本のひとつ。
実は、今もエルマーのペンケースを使っています;-)
海外旅行でたまった小銭入れと化していますけれど…絶対に手放せないお気に入りです。

今年からゴールデンウィークは、グリーンウィークに？！

「休みの日にこそ地球にやさしい過ごしかたをしよう！」というのが、グリーンウィークの提案だ。しかも日本の1年間のうち30%が休日。その休日がグリーンになれば、かなりCO2が減るというわけ！

引用：greenz.jp「突然ですが、今年からゴールデンウィークはグリーンウィークになります」[LINK]

グリーンウィークは、クールビズのように話題になるかな。イギリスのエコ雑誌を読んでいると、休暇頃にはいつもグリーンホリデーの提案がされています。飛行機に乗らないで公共機関を使って旅をしよう！歩いて（イギリス人は大の散歩好き）旅をしよう！などなど。ヨーロッパまで電車で行ける国だと、旅好きでも制限された感じにならずにグリーンホリデーができそう。

ぜひぜひおすすめなのが海外旅行をはじめ、移動にかかった二酸化炭素をオフセットする「カーボンオフセット」。日本→イギリスもわずか数千円で可能です。ランチ1回分をパスしたら、かるくできる！今年の旅行はオフセットってどうでしょう？

ちなみに…私がずっと提案していることが、通勤のオフセット。会社と社員が半分ずつ出して（or社員は一律、会社が補完）通勤にかかるカーボンオフセットをしている会社があったらかっこいいと思う。チームマイナス6%に参加してます、とか、グリーン名刺使ってます、よりもリアルだと思うのだけどなぁー。

ITmedia, one of the most popular news site in Japan reveals some secret of MacBook Air (reported by me ;-)  )

ITmedia: the secret of MacBook Air (the text is in Japanese, but pictures speak it all)

here are the summaries:

1. You *CAN* boot your MacBook Air via Remote Disc. The EFI on MacBook Air has been revised
   
   
2. You *CAN* use old MagSafe adapter but if you stick it to MacBook Air you *can't* put it in the middle of the table.
   You will find why, looking at this picture:
   (there are more pictures at ITmedia article)
   
   

 Yaari, an India-based social network became very well-known in japan just  in a few day; and then, it became one of the most infamous social network of all.

 Why?

 I think they have bitten the forbidden fruit.
 Using the addressbook of web mail (e.g. gmail) for solicitation is something all other social network has tried to do.
But every other service did it with permission.

 Yaari, asks you to register with your gmail account and asks for its password but if people became so open-minded and start giving out their gmail password, they can be easy targets for fraud; and that's a bad sign.

 Most of the other social network starts using this method, after they become well established.
Yaari may be well established and well-known in India but  they were unheard of here in Japan.
And because they failed with how they made their first impression , I bet they will fail here in Japan; first impression matters so much here in Japan; and failure is not an option here.
 Now people are becoming cautious and blogging to ignore all invitations from Yaari; some even say it is a virus or spams.

 I believe Yaari gave us a very good lesson in how we should not use the soliciting through web-mail method any more.

 What's next?

 I think OpenID is the way we should follow.

 No more unnecessary give-away's of e-mail address and passwords!

I think Yaari should stop using that  soliciting through web-mailimmediately and switch to OpenID; if they become they make a good example of OpenID, they may regain trust.

What a wonderful day, it was!

It has been the dream of me, Hitoshi Hokamura and Chris Stone to have people from "MAKE" magazine meet Gakken, a Japanese publisher who has been making educational toys and kits for the kids for almost four decades.

Thanks to Fumi Yamazaki of Joi Ito Lab and Saharu Kondo, we could actually make it happen today!

We brought Phillip Torrene of "MAKE" magazine and Limor Fried to Gakken's headquarter.

Phillip has known about Gakken for quite some time now. He has even been blogging about Gakken a few times:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/06/gakken_cup_phonograph_and_vacu.html
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/11/gakken_steam_en.html

Limor said she also fell in love with Gakken and it has been her dream to come here.

I am so glad that I could take a part in this visit.

It was almost like Steve Jobs meeting Larry Tesler at Xerox PARC or Ry Cooder visiting Buena Vista Social Club.
It was such a fun meeting and it gave so much good vibes to me.

They instantly knew what they are up to or what kind of challenges they had, etc.
They have also been stimulating each other so much. I saw sparks filling the room.

That was a one milestone meeting in the history of scientific toys.

I think it would be a start of a very good, positive, constructive relationship.

I can't wait to see that.

Here are some pictures and videos. I will be adding a few more videos at later date when I have more time.

I don't have time to read through the US publications. So I don't know how they are introduced on US publications.
But as I've expected, many Japanese publications and blogs are saying that iPod touch is an iPhone sans phone.
To be honest, I was one of them when I've posted my first (Japanese) blog entry immediately after the live chat reports of US Apple Special Event on Gizmodo and Engadget.

 As I attended the Apple Special Event in Japan and touched the real thing I've totally changed my mind.;I also got to talk to Stan Ng for brief moments.

 Not many companies can come up with product or product line-up that is this well thought out.

After all, 'iPod touch' is an 'iPod' and it is meant to be the device you'd enjoy your favorite contents on and the device that you'd carry around along with your cell phone.

 If you chose the 'IPod touch'-way you'd check e-mail, stock price, weather and use Google Map with your Blackberry Pearl or other phones of your choice; Blackberry pearl would be 'MY' choice ;-)

 By seeing what feature 'iPod touch' has, you will get a clearer picture of what 'iPod' stands for and what 'iPHONE' stands for.

 These two pictures from Jan '07 may give youeven better ideas about what this is all about:

 These are Apple's definition of IPod,  phone and mobile Internet device.

 iPhone is the sum of all three and iPod is... an iPod!
 It is true that there are slight overlaps and crossover features but the 80% of what's been said on these slides are true even after the intro of iPod touch.

 As I look through some of the Japanese articles, they seem to be confused about multi-touch screens, too.
 They tend to think, multi-touch is the premium feature you  can buy with extra $50.
 Wrong again.

 iPod Classic is not the iPod touch sans multi-touch. It is the 'Classic' iPod.
 Remember the old days? When you were grow your music collections just past the iPod and then Apple came up with bigger capacity iPods?
 iPod Classic came from that vector of revolution.
 It is your 160GB, take-all-music-with-you-anywhere iPod.

Now some people may ask why iPod classic doesn't have the multi-touch.
Well, imagine flicking through 160GB of music. I don't think I have the patience to do that.
Click-wheel is a much better interface to do it.
I think iPod Classic made clear that Click-wheel, one of the three HID method Apple has contribute, is not dead.

I think, you'll get what iPod nanos stand for and IPod shuffle stand for.

It is so amazing that each and every one of the five products, shuffles, nanos, Classics, touchs and iPhone, have such distinct characteristics.

 You have to put a good amount of thoughts to build a product lineup this good.

If you figured out how, give me a video response!

I'll post the answer on Monday, US time; if I didn't forget.

hint: the cable is for charging purpose only.

どうしても食べられない苦手な物はありますか？その理由も教えてください。

クルミ。
だって、アレルギーなんだもん。
のどやら耳の奥がくすぐったくなります。

クルミが原因だとわかるまでは、
食べてはやられていたっけ。
味は好きなんだけどなぁ。

あとは、
マヨネーズとレバー（特に火が通ったもの）が苦手。