A little about myself.
I am an IT technician, participate in many projects, some HTML work, and reading a lot. I also contribute articles to IT magazines about Open Source Software as a core member of Japan Apache Users Group. I've been in computer related fields from 1978. starting in college, nuclear physics major, I had to take a class in FORTRAN and that was it, I was hooked on the machines. I started working first as an application programmar at a system development
company. Then moved on to a system integration company, and specializing in data communication, small & mid size systems. I run a small intranet at home, a router, Windows Servers, Windows Desktops and CentOS Linux . The Linux runs DNS, HTTP, FTP, SMTP, and POP3 making it nice for software testing and development.



Saturday, February 28, 2009

49ers and American history

American football isn’t very popular in Japan, but American people really loved it. Only 16 matches every team play and the tickets are sold out at instance. In California, San Francisco 49ers is very popular and have a lot of fans.

49 means 1849. What is the origin of the name? 1849 was the year a gold mine was found near Sacramento, the current state capital city, and begun Gold Rush. After the year, the population of California increased rapidly, and developed day by day.

Only one year before 1849, the Mexican war was ended with America’s victory. Mexico gave California, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming to America and lose one third of the territory at that time. Next year, the big gold mine was found. I believe Mexico was really disappointed. In addition to, many limitless oil wells were found in Texas after years. America took two things because of  the victory of Mexican war to have a current super power.

Do you think The Mexican War was a kind of invation war? Mexican believe the war was America’s invade. Of course American people don’t think so. American history books say that America had rights to have and governed these territories because Mexico just only had and did nothing in there; we American people developed them and brought into European culture, civilization and religion.

How do you think about it?

Thursday, February 26, 2009

How to attend MIT's lectures from commuting train.

It take almost two hours to get to my office, it's a long, long time. So, I have a portable DVD player with me everyday, and watch movies when commuting. I love "24", " Lost" or other American TV dramas. But I have to have many DVDs to watch. I don't have enough money to rent so much.

In America, MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UCB, University of California Berkeley, and other universities provide videos which recorded their extension lectures on their websites or YouTube. You can watch, attend and download these videos anytime from anywhere without any costs.

I download these videos and burn them into DVD medias. They are about Computer Sciences, Biology, Civil Engineering, History, Law, Agriculture, Foreign Languages, and many more.

Honestly speaking, it's not so easy to understand. I can't understand them all. They are for native English speaker, and have no subtitle and no scripts. On the other hand, they spoke relatively clear and easier to listen than dirty detective movies. And I can watch or listen again and again if I can't follow them.

It's unbelievable and fantastic! I can attend MIT's lectures , everyone knows and hope to go. In addition to all free and from commuting train!

Monday, February 23, 2009

PC isn't short for Personal Computer

"PC" is interesting term. This PC isn’t Personal Computer; this is short for "Politically Correct". For example, you must not call black people Negro in public because it's very offensive term for them. How about Black? It is not very bad, but not correct. The best way is to call them African American. Yes, this expression is PC, not include racial, sex or religious discrimination.

"Policeman" include sex discrimination because policeman in not only man but also a woman. "Fireman" is the same. You'd better to call them "police officer" and "firefighter".

One of my American friends has Japanese mother and American father, and he call himself “half Jap”. "Jap" is a very very offensive term for Japanese. But nowadays some people don’t feel so unacceptable. But some, especially aged Japanese American people, it feels very bad.

PC is very difficult.

"Couch potato" is a deeply offensive term- we prefer "furniture-based leisure prioritizers".

Sunday, February 22, 2009

What is K+R? American’s commuting way.

 There are few cities or metropolitan areas in US which have good public transportation systems especially subway or train. New York, Boston, San Francisco and Atlanta where I  have visited have. They have stations in outskirts of the city and have a big parking area, and they say it “Park and Ride”. That means commuters come to the station and park, and then ride trains.

Other case, there are many couples, husbands commute to the downtown and wives work at the area where they live in. In this case, the wife takes her husband to the station by car, he kiss her and ride a train to commute. They say that “Kiss and Ride” instead of “Park and Ride.” Of course kiss isn’t a must. They are good for public because no need parkat the stations and no traffic jam in the city center.

When I visited to Atlanta, I had a free time; I went to Martin Arthur Kings Jr. Historical Site, very famous national park. That area is a place where relatively lower income people live in. There is a station named Kings Memorial. I took a picture bellow because the notice was interesting. This say as you see “Kiss-Ride”. They said that only MARTA, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, use this word officially. They say that some stations notice for  just only “K+R”. Of course they have a parking for kiss-and-rider to easy to kiss-and-ride.