Archive for March, 2007

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Unicode and Japanese Names

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

Just investigating how well modern Japanese personal and place names are represented in commonly-available character sets, such as JIS X 0208 and Unicode.

The short story is that Unicode on a recent version of Windows or Mac OS X should be adequate in most cases, perhaps over 99%, for handling modern input data involving place and personal names.

For the actual details, please read on …

So far it appears that there are several Japanese place names that use kanji not available in common computer character sets.

Japanese personal names have the following general properties:

  • People born in Japan normally have a family name (2 kanji) followed by a given name (2 kanji), both written in kanji. There are about 100,000 family names. There are many more given names, with kanji selected from an official list maintained by the Ministry of Justice, the Jinmei kanji list, of 500 to 1,000 characters.
  • However, if parents insist on a given name that cannot be represented in the Jinmei list, they may register a given name in hiragana.
  • Foreigners have their name written in katakana unless they register for a name in kanji.
  • Names written in cursive calligraphy (sousho) for use in poetry or artistic forms, or on hanko stamps, or variants, cannot be represented with standard code points and would have to be handled as an image.

JIS X 0208 – 1983 does a fair job of representing most, but not all, personal names and locations. It includes the Jinmei kanji list.
JIS X 0213 – 1997 is an update of JIS X 0208 that is round-trippable with Unicode 3.1.

So personal names are mostly representable in current JIS and Unicode, although anybody can use variant kanji that would cause problems on input, storage and display of their name. I suppose such a user would have to fall back to another kanji codepoint, same kanji with wrong glyph, or even just use hiragana.

Windows XP and Server 2003 can process Unicode 3.0 and Unicode 4.0. Vista appears to support Unicode 5.0. Rendering would depend on your installed fonts.

Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) supports Unicode 4.0.

Unicode in Japan
Japan expands list of kanji for names
Japanese Names
Is it true that in Japan a citizen’s name has to be in kanji, and not in hiragana?
sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions
Wikipedia: Japanese Names
Jun Gifts: Hanko Stamps
Which Unicode Version Is Supported by Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server?
Extend The Global Reach Of Your Applications With Unicode 5.0
Apple Mac OS X: Features - International

Posted in Japanese, Tech | No Comments »

Alan Blinder Admits Offshoring Bad

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

So, Dr. Alan Blinder, an eminent American economist, Princeton professor and ardent freetrader for decades, is quoted on the front page of the Wall Street Journal as questioning the long-term effects of knowledge worker job foreign outsourcing on the US economy.

He estimates 40 million US jobs will be outsourced, causing long-term economic problems.

I don’t think the 400,000 (more) computer jobs to be given away caught his attention – but the economist and accountant jobs on the “hit list” finally struck a chord.

Alan: you may be a little slow, but you’re headed in the right direction. Now take a look at this link and try to find a mention of an American computer equipment manufacturer. Good luck. That’s the future for IT if we continue in the current outsourcing direction.

What can you do as an economist?

Next time an administration asks for economic policy advice:

  1. recommend that state and federal branches “Hire American”
  2. ensure that US college science education and DARPA are adequately funded
  3. abolish the H1B and L1B programs, which distort IT salaries in this country. H1B’s aren’t any better than local job candidates, in my experience, just cheaper and more compliant. If more engineers are needed, make them citizens. (But I bet employers wouldn’t like offering market wages.)
  4. create incentive for employers to train employees, such as conferences and classes. As a professor, you’d be appalled at the lack of continuing education in most jobs, especially IT and software development.

The US is not short of computer science, math and science graduates. It is short on grads who will work for peanuts because of outsourcing-related salary capping, or in dead-end careers.

IT outsourcing is less efficient and less accountable in the short term, and more expensive in the long-term. Plus we are just training our future competitors.

Dobbs: We’re on a ‘fast track’ to bad trade policy
AP: India high-tech industry out of workers
YouTube: PERM Fake Job Ads defraud Americans to secure green cards
USAToday.com: Law enforcement struggles to combat Chinese spying
cnet.com: Allow more green cards for foreign techies, Congress told

Posted in Business, Psychology, Tech | No Comments »

sf.pm.org: Peter Thoeny talks about twiki

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

TWiki LogoPeter Thoeny of TWiki and StructuredWikis gave a sf.pm.org talk tonite in San Francisco on wikis and knowledge management. About a dozen people attended. He said it was similar to a talk he gave at Google recently.

Peter is the original author of TWiki, based on the source of an older wiki project. TWiki is written in Perl and licensed under the GPL. He has done consulting for numerous Silicon Valley companies, installing and customizing internal wikis for companies such as Oracle and Wind River.

The TWiki project has 5 core programmers (committers), with many other people submitting patches, testing and writing plug-ins.

Peter is originally from Switzerland, but enjoyed working in Japan for 8 years, and moved to Silicon Valley in 1998.

He’s a typical European speaker, with a lot of slides (52) and a lot of writing on the slides. Very thorough.

The audience oohed and aahed when he demoed the form creation and editing feature of TWiki. It’s possible to prototype small applications using TWiki syntax.

A bank employee, who was required to attend, mentioned investigating wikis for corporate knowledge management and documenting source code.

His philosophy on access control to wiki pages is that if a user can see it, then they should be able to edit it. Also, all engineers in a company should be able to see all wiki pages related to engineering. Otherwise the benefits of knowledge sharing are lost when too many silos are erected.

Peter also talked a little about “situational wikis.” These are wikis or wiki sections created for special projects, used intensively, then kept online for historical purposes only after the project ends.

I used TWiki at Yahoo! and Cisco, but currently use mediawiki in a small company.

Another person who works at Yahoo! mentioned that they have finally upgraded TWiki from a 2000-ish version.

I would say that TWiki and mediawiki are the 2 most popular wikis in Silicon Valley, with TWiki more suitable for enterprise use when authentication is needed, and mediawiki being popular with groups already familiar with editing Wikipedia and who are not interested in lots of plug-ins.

We had a drink at Maxwell’s in the Hilton hotel afterwards. He said that he has worked with other scripting languages such as Python, but still appreciates Perl. His opinion of Perl’s OO features is that overall OO Perl is ok, but needing bless is quite odd.

2 attendees were looking for Perl work, and one person was looking for a Perl shopping cart programmer. Peter is hiring Perl programmers for a new stealth company he is involved in.

Thanks to Barclays Global Investors for hosting the talk and continuing support of sf.pm.org. I understand they are always looking for good Perl programmers who enjoy wearing a suit to work.

Posted in Business, Open Source, Perl, Tech, User Groups | No Comments »

Mac OS X: Icons Fall Out of the Dock?

Monday, March 26th, 2007

Hi Macolytes.

AppleAny idea why an icon will fall out of the dock if the associated program crashes?

I have noticed this problem several times with recent versions of Yahoo! Messenger (3.0 beta 1 build 18274). When YM crashes, its dock icon is removed and I must open the Finder and drag the icon back to the dock. Very annoying. The Skype client is 10x more robust than YM.

Also, does anybody know of a more reliable program to use the Yahoo! Messenger network than their flaky client program?

  1. Yahoo! Messenger reliably crashes when no Internet connection is available on both Mac OS X and Windows XP.
  2. There’s no way to save a text-only (no HTML) version of a session with emoticons intact on Mac OS X.

Posted in Tech, Toys | No Comments »

People’s Amazing Variations

Saturday, March 24th, 2007

I’m often amazed with the physical and mental variations in people.

When I first visited Indonesia, I was surprised to see that most women are flexible enough to easily bend their fingers back to their wrists, and some can also straighten their ankles to more than 180 degrees.

Similarly, Cirque du Soleil employs some female performers from a tribe in Mongolia who can arch their back 180 degrees.

A large percentage of the population in some areas in Bali and Solo have the ability to sculpt to a museum-quality level, similar to ancient Greek and Roman artwork.

I think Asian people are more aware of the umami taste sense also.

I’ve met some people with photographic memories … and others who can effortlessly mimic complex bird songs. Also some that are empathic … which makes meetings awkward when I’m not in a good mood that day – they immediately want to know why.

Babe Ruth was tested by neurologists and found to have reaction and processing times better than 95% of the population. One doctor said that he was capable of being successful at anything, given his mental capabilities.

Here’s a new one to me though – some women can see in 4 color bands:

Some women may see 100 million colors, thanks to their genes

Some people see different colors when non-visual cues are received, called synesthesia.

“I have synesthesia. I didn’t know it was so uncommon. I actually like having synesthesia, it helps me with spelling and other stuff (I know what colour a word should be, so I change the letters until the color is right). Sometimes it is annoying when people don’t understand what I’m talking about, or when I hide from a colour because it hurts.”

“I am a working artist in San Francisco… I have synesthesia to a great degree… all numbers, number sequences, letters and words have corresponding color patterns… I think that is why i have a very easy time remembering phone numbers and quotes…I also see music with great definition when i listen to it… I’d love to learn more about it…” – Xavi

I guess we each have our own talents, and part of life is discovering what those are.


In Our Messy, Reptilian Brains
Hypnosis Lets Regular People See Numbers as Colors
msnbc: Your body’s 10 weirdest health clues

Posted in Psychology, Tech | No Comments »

VHF and Antennas for Yaesu VX-5R HT

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

Yaesu VX-5R TransceiverLooking to increase airband reception (118.0-137.0 MHz) sensitivity on my Yaesu VX-5R HT.

Internet forums often recommend the following antennas:

Comet Antenna SMA-24 eHam Reviews
Diamond Antenna SRH-999

Any suggestions?

Update: I bought the Comet SMA-24 at HRO and am trying it out. Seems to add 2 or 3 signal bars over the stock antenna. Quite odd seeing 8 bars clipped (max) on my VX-5R for NorCal Approach. :)

It is a whip antenna, so whips around. Impractical for long walks or in crowds, and attracts unwanted attention.

Wikipedia: Very High Frequency: USA

Undocumented Yaesu VX-5R Features

I read about the CPU reset feature online, but found the others listed below by playing with the keypad.

  • Idiot Mode – Pwr-MR. Only large digits on the display, may be used only in MR mode, user can change only squelch and TX power. VFO, preferences and other features are blocked.
  • Screen Test Mode – Pwr-VFO.
  • Set Reset – Pwr-MR-VFO.
  • All (CPU) Reset- Pwr-Mr-VFO-4.
  • Clone Mode – Pwr-F/W.
  • Programming 0.0 MHz into a home memory from external cable can cause it to lock up.

Jumper mods available, depending on serial number.

RX:
.53-16
48-728
800-999

TX:
48-66
108-222
305-577

Will not accept 35 MHz as an entered frequency.

Review from a Yaesu VX-7R owner:

“Hint: I liked the Yaesu products so much that when my XYL and 11 year old harmonic both recently passed their Tech licenses, I bought each of them a VX5.”

XYL: Ex-Young Lady (amateur radio)

Modifications for the Yaesu VX-5R
VX-5R Expanded frequency
Yaesu VX 5 R (VX-5 R VX5R)
Yaesu ‘VX-2R’ mods, including USB adapter
Radio manuals online

Posted in Tech, Toys | No Comments »

Review: Icom IC-A23 Aviation Transceiver

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

Icom AC-23 TransceiverI recently bought a used Icom IC-A23 hand-held aviation transceiver and accessories, and have been playing with it.

This model has been discontinued by Icom, but I feel the newer IC-A24 is disadvantaged by its larger size. The IC-A24 does have a flip-flop feature to recall the last 10 frequencies entered, but I tend to use memories to store them anyway.

The A23 is very nice indeed with some great features:

  • compact- size of your hand since the battery slides in back, not bottom, but won’t fit in most pockets
  • solid, pro feel
  • good reception, even from ground-level
  • VOR navigation features
  • backlit keypad (though alternate function labels are not lighted)
  • 200 memories in banks of 10 with alphanumeric labels
  • memories can be tagged as scannable or not – nice for skipping ATIS and VOR frequencies in memory
  • uses standard 1/8 inch headset jack (nice for walking around and for glider pilots)
  • 20 hour battery life
  • duplex feature for simultaneous Rx VOR and Tx FSS
  • 10 NOAA Wx frequencies (USA model)
  • 20 second voice recording of signal
  • can swap arrow buttons with top mechanical rotating dial – great if the dial malfunctions!
  • belt clip is built-in to battery back
  • after-market hi capacity batteries and accessories available
  • can buy a cable to clone memory to other units.

Minuses are:

  • no military frequencies, which would be very handy for airshows
  • 15 hours to recharge battery
  • unplugging headset or battery while unit in operation requires power cycle for correct audio on my unit
  • dedicated feature for 121.5 emergency frequency, but not more modern ones like 243.0 and 406.025 MHz
  • actually, too many features available on keypad for some users.

I also own a Narco HT 870 hand-held Aviation Transceiver and a Yaesu VX-5R hand-held ham transceiver.

The HT 870 is ok, but is an 80’s-style radio: no keypad backlighting, Wx, alpha labels, tagging or record feature, limited duplex operation to 122.10 MHz, only 10 memories, 1/4 inch jack, brick-shaped. It does operate basically the same as the Icom though: I did not need to read the Icom manual for most features to transition over.

IC-A23 VHF Aviation Transceiver Specifications
Radio manuals online

Posted in Flying, Tech, Toys | No Comments »

Mac FilmMakers – Logging and Capturing with Final Cut Pro

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007

Another good Mac FilmMakers slate tonite at Apple in Cupertino.

Demo Reels

Phil did a nice slideshow with astro photos using Slideshow Expressions Software and his own exposures. He uses 4 telescopes, DSLRS and cryogenic sensors. Serious gear. Exposures were between 20 minutes and 9 hours, using a main telescope and a guiding telescope.

Jim did a nice slideshow using iPhoto of plum trees in Japan. Hand-held Canon SD500.

One videographer showed 3 shorts: Tokyo at Night (spectacular), the Fish Market, and Professor Robot Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro (odd and a little creepy showing him and his robot twin in the same frame). He used a $4,000 Canon XH A1 HDV camera. His secret for the night shots was to “shoot a lot and keep the good stuff.”

A commercial filmmaker showed a documentary of the creation of a haunted house set in a hangar. Funny watching the actor tryouts, scary seeing the final results and reaction of the audience.

Mac OS X Backups and Hard Drive Troubleshooting

Kevin did a lecture on backup techniques for the Mac. He used a 800 GB firewire drive with 3 partitions to illustrate various methods. He recommends using a small one for a boot partition (30-40 GB) and a large one for most everything else.

He demoed using the GUI repair tool and also fsck in single user mode to repair partitions.

The Geniuses rely on Disk Warrior.

Many audience members chimed in with their experiences and favorite tools and techniques.

Logging and Capturing Video with Final Cut Pro

An Apple Store Creative Genius demonstrated the logging and features in Final Cut Pro. (These techniques are not applicable to Final Cut Express.)

He initially was a Premier user, but got interested in Apple products when he saw FCP logging.

He demoed logging some tapes from his “beater handicam” of footage he shot for a documentary called “Cyclops” of a unicycle parade.

He likes backing up project files by emailing them to himself periodically.

He likes about 5 seconds for pre-roll and post-roll.

A wedding photographer mentioned doing from 20 seconds down to as little as 1 second for good cameras and tape.

A couple people mentioned that they log the whole tape as one piece just for the sake of logging it.

He also showed some clever twists on video capture, such as doing a low-res JPEG capture to save disk space, doing your project rough cut, then at the finish re-capturing your video in hi res.

Sundance Film Festival 2006 Review

Kevin talked for a while about his dream trip to the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

Some attendance tips:

  • 2 show passes available A and B. A is first 5 days, B the last 5. Book A well in advance. Price of A and B is $5500 for 10 days.
  • Book your hotel well in advance. Park City is sold out months in advance for $300-$500/nite. Sharing is good.
  • No parking in Park City, so use the convenient shuttle buses.
  • Make your own food, as the restaurants will have hours-long lineups.
  • People are there to network, so carry lots of business cards.
  • Stars show up for 6 pm premier showing, not 9 pm one.
  • There are a total of 4 festivals happening: Sundance, Film Music, Schlock and Indie.
  • Some films are viewable in the press rooms of the Yarrow hotel.
  • Yarrow Hotel is most central location. The place to be.
  • Can be cold outside, bring parka for lineups.
  • Albertson’s has free wifi.
  • Postal mail schwag home.

Posted in Photography, Tech, Toys | No Comments »

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