Necessity of mouse-pointer-trajectory recognition software for desktop PC users

Apple’s new tablet machine, which is said to come out in the spring of coming year, I guess, might be grown to a good platform for reading electronic-newspapers. Meanwhile, as a MS-Windows desktop PC user, I hope mouse-pointer motion recognition software is developed and available for desktop computers sometime in future. Right-click-required mouse operation while reading through news articles seems to be an obstacle for prospective prevalence of e-papers. Zooming and page-flip should be able to become possible only by an automatic recognition of simple and discriminative trajectory (Fig) of the mouse pointer in the era of Windows8.

The possibilities of A4 size newspaper

These days, financial difficulties of newspaper companies based on paper-based newspaper delivery system are frequently reported. Independent journalists, analysts and lots of bloggers are forecasting that paper-based newspapers will be replaced by Internet-based electronic newspaper services sooner or later. But in my opinion, paper-based newspapers still have possibilities of reestablishing their delivery systems and sharpening the competitive superiority by using them. There are various situations on which the advantages of paper-based information can be useful.

One of the undiscussed reasons of decreasing subscribers of major newspapers is their size. The unpopularity of paper-based newspaper seems to be related with its bulky image. In recent years, I come to feel that the size of A1 two-page spread is too large to handle. Why has this feeling been formed? Perhaps, it may be related with the A4-nization of various kinds of documents in today’s office work. In office documentation field, A4-nizing tendencies are prominent. As a result of A4-nization, even the handlings of B4, B5 or A3 size documents have come to be felt onerous. In such aspect, A1 two-page spread size tends to give us uncomfortable impression occasionally and become disadvantageous more and more.

The advantages of A4 size paper-based newspaper are easiness of handling, scanning and filing. When we find an important article in A4 size newspaper, only procedures we need to do next are extracting the page and putting it into A4 size document folder. Loose binding of each page would be possible by using flammable threads, which enable easy disposability.

Though the distribution by PDF file may be possible, both-side printing on thin papers is bothersome. In addition, PDF readability by compact device is still not so good. Therefore, delivery of papers already printed on very thin and cheap papers would be required for a time.

The developmental and maintaining costs of rotary press would be decreased, because the utilization of the compatible components for commercially available printer can be possible. When the transportation system problem occurs, the distribution by PDF file can substitute.

By using commercially available cheap printers, starting small sized paper-based newspaper company will become easier. It will follow that the borderline between weekly magazine and daily newspaper might be ambiguous.

Introducing: The World is made of music 2 Volume set.

‘The World is made of music.’

These two volumes are the guidebook for world music.

On YouTube, there are lots of world music videos uploaded from all over the world, which are not familiar to usual Japanese people. I sometimes download some of them and transfer them to my MP3 player. My selection from Youtube has been on a hit-or-miss basis and deviated to popular music related to my specific concerns. So, I had been searching for genealogical guide for world popular music. In 2007, these two volumes were published and I bought them soon. Though most of the descriptions are in Japanese, the artist’s name and the album title are adscripted in English with the picture of the each album’s cover. Most of the artist’s names in these volumes can be found on YouTube if you input an artist name or an album title to YouTube’s search dialog box. I picked up lots of artists from these volumes and put their names into YouTube’s search dialog box to check if there were someone whose works couldn’t be found on YouTube, but I haven't found such an example so far. On the contrary, I found that all the artists I picked up have incredibly large view counts, even though most of usual Japanese people might have not heard of even their names.

The first volume: Latin America, North America and Africa

The second volume: Europe, Asia, South Pacific, Russia and NIS

Mt. Hiyama

This photo was taken from the viewing platform near the top of Mt. Hiyama, the highest point you can drive up to on the mountain. Hiyama is a mountain located on Kurahashi Island, Hiroshima. (3DMap-1, 3DMap-2).

3DMap-1

3DMap-2

A small parking area is available near the viewing platform. Two crests exist near the parking area and both are good viewing spots.

Tone: piano vs. violin.

Though I’m not able to play neither piano nor violin, comparing and contrasting their tones has been one of my concerns. If asked which instrument I prefer at present, I would answer that I like piano pieces more than violin pieces. If I evaluate objectively, I admit that the tone of violin itself seems to be much more beautiful than piano tone. But violin tones are too fragile for me, while piano tones are very tough. Of course, violin has a disadvantage in the numbers of tones which can be generated at once. But I think the essence of this comparison isn’t related to the number of notes of polyphony.

Sometime, piano tones sound like a bulldozer as shown in this play on youtube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKdeYnA8Epw&feature=related

A magnetism of piano play for me exists in the moment when the bulldozer suddenly changes into a little bird. At such moment, I can’t stop thinking that piano is a magic box or an earth's biggest magician.

If we limit the evaluation standard within the realm of fragile beauty, the violin tones may be winner. But sooner or later, modern sound technology will enable us to attach the ‘enhanced playing mode’ to usual pianos. A switch into enhanced playing mode will transform little bird's chirp into more sophisticated fragile tones, which real material's vibration can’t generate. Piano will evolve with the calculated tone technique.

(I'm entirely outside the ropes on music. Above idea is merely my cup of tea. If you are a wholehearted violin lover, please disregard this entry as an amateur's sleep talking.)

Double slit experiment and independency of physical events.

After writing previous entry, I can’t help but reconsider about the double slit experiment. Though I’m not an expert on physics, several questions arose in me on the analyses of the double slit experiment.

1. Independency between each one-particle emission event isn’t clearly defined. One particle emission P01, one particle emission P02, P03… and one particle emission Pn are really mutually independent events from the viewpoint of causality? Isn’t it necessary to define and check independency among each emission event? Is particle emission the same as dice rolling? If the intervals between P01 and P100 were very large (100 years, one particle a year), would really the fringe pattern be same?

2. The concept of wave behavior is introduced without proof. Isn’t there a possibility of the effect that is similar to wave? Isn’t the coordinate system itself oscillating?

3. Physical events should be classified into two categories. a) An event definitely unreachable by human behavior caused by consciousness. b) An event containing certain possibilities of interference by human behavior caused by consciousness. The prediction law for the trajectory of the latter case b) is, as is obvious, different from former case.

If double slit experiments were conducted where human intention can’t reach, wouldn’t the results change?

Faulty memory.

If you are accustomed to using MS-excel or other spreadsheet software, it may not be difficult to understand difference between directly entered value (fixed value) and value calculated from functional (or referential) input. If you enter a figure ‘24’ in cell B03, value of the figure ‘24’ will be displayed in the B03 cell. This ‘24’ is the directly entered value (fixed value). But if you enter ‘=A24’ in the cell B03, the same value as A24 cell will be displayed in the B03 cell. If figure ‘6’ is entered in the cell A24, the value ‘6’ will be displayed also in the B03 cell. If you change the figure of '6' in cell A24 into '9,' the value in the B03 cell also changes into '9' at the same time.

A merit of prevalence of spreadsheet software is, in my opinion, it has made mathematical concept of function clearly close to everyone.

Then, to which are all the photographs and moving images recorded by people around the world classified, fixed values or functional values? What about our memories? If referenced source had been manipulated, would our photos, DVD and memories have changed at the same time? Of course, I have never doubt that the photographs are fixed embodiments in this physical Universe. However, …

The other day, I pulled out an old DVD-R from my collection and watched a recorded program again. The program was recorded three years ago. I watched it a few times in the past since I recorded the program. This time, I found that a slight difference exist in a background scene between the scene displayed this time and the one recalled from my memory that was memorized 3 years ago. A kanji in advertising sign that I had remembered 3 years ago has changed into a similar Kanji that is slightly different from original one. The program was an old TV drama and the reason why I had remembered such a trivial matter was due to the fact that the meaning of the Kanji advertising sign had been the same as one of the names of the characters in the drama. When I watched three years ago, I speculated on the reason of its coincidence. But this time the coincidence isn't admitted.

Finally, I concluded that my faulty memory was the reason of the difference. If I admitted that my memory was correct, that would means bit-by-bit manipulation of moving images technology was used. It may be possible in principle. But in my case, I can’t suppose such a treatment had been done.

This story on my falty memory ends here. But I can’t help but generalize this experience. In the ‘Back to the future’ movie, a snapshot that changed with the space-time manipulation was an important subsidary object. And in the famous movie below, a photograph on an old newspaper was an important key.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM-WrqE4_Jc

Have all the photographs and moving images recorded by people around the world really not changed at all so far? If manipulation of space-time is possible, does the analogy of functional input to spreadsheet apply to our photos, DVD and memories?

Road stations.

There are lots of (936 places) road stations in Japan. Though those stations have been constructed to give comfortable repose and food services mainly to long-distance car drivers, they are open to people other than car drivers. As a matter of fact, some restaurants in road stations are very popular among the local people. Some road stations are located along the roads that are liked by cyclists. Unknown but nice goods such as local confectionaries and folk pieces that are not available at usual nationwide chain stores are on sale. Maps of road stations are available from this site.

http://www.mlit.go.jp/road/station/road-station.html

As above figure shows, easily understandable signs are displayed on this site to show what kinds of services are available at each station.

A comparison between Google-Maps and Bing-Maps.

Differences between Google-Maps and Bing-Maps are becoming visible. Bing-Maps seem to have been well planned from a viewpoint of actual conditions of common office works in Japan. As above figure in typical magnification scale shows, every prefecture name is displayed on Bing-maps, while major prefectural capital city names are displayed on Google-maps. On the right map, place-names of Kyoto, Nara and Shiga are not displayed. Information management by prefecture name is quite universal in various documentations in Japan. Therefore, the left map would be copy&pasted more frequently than right map as an auxiliary map at various occasions such as brief presentations or small meetings. In addition, as most Japanese people can't understand Hangeul characters, romanized Korean place names display is also convenient.

They would say that this is a slight difference. But, we should notice that the Windows oligopoly have been formed by long-term accumulation of such slight differences.

Groundbreaking years toward Talent-Capitalism

A series of moves around Susan Boyle suggested to me that the era of talent-capitalism is emerging. I challenged to sketch a vague image of structural changes. Talented person had to enter a high-risk high-return segment so far. However, appearances of medium risk high-return success examples would sway the high-risk high-return segment. Finally, the structure of medium risk, medium return segment would change.

Déjà vu. Will the seamless combination of Bing-Maps and MS-Excel be realizable?

As the Bing-Maps became accessible from my PC, I challenged to experience their operability. The first thing I thought after using them was that MS would never fail to combine Bing-Maps and MS-Excel soon or later as follows. 1) From Excel software on one’s desktop machine, direct output and storage of one’s worksheet or graph onto the Bing-Maps may become possible. This means that making of figures as shown above may be easily possible without any cut and paste. Above figure was made with a repetition of multiple cut and paste. 2) Excel-like simple workbench may be usable on Bing-Maps. At least in Japan, lots of users would switch to Bing-Maps. As the Google’s reputation largely depends on Google-map, its business model would be impacted to a greater or lesser extent. Even under the Chrome OS’s dominance, Windows OS would survive. MS must have learned a lot from Mac OS’s survival strategy after Win95 more than anyone else.

Yahoo auction watch (3) Made in occupied Japan

A sewing machine with the engraved mark of ‘Made in occupied Japan.’ is coming up for auction.I firstly know that the nationality of 57-64 years old Japanese people is ‘Occupied Japan’ in a strict sense.

Advancement of ground-penetrating radar and a legend of the buried treasure.

This photograph was taken at Wshuzan, one of the best viewing spots in the Inland Sea area. Though this seascape is well known, an island in the center of this photo isn’t well known even to Japanese people. The name of this island is Matsushima, which means the island of pine. Number of habitants is said to be less than 5 at present. Historically, this island was related to Sumitomo Fujiwara (A.C. 893-941), who was a medieval soldier and died leaving the legend of buried treasure. It has been said that ninety-nine jars containing Gold still exist somewhere related to him in the Inland Sea area. Other than his treasure, several legends of buried treasures of medieval pirates exist around the Inland Sea islands.

These days, rental services of ground-penetrating radar are becoming personally affordable range (e.g. 50,000yen a day). I hope each island municipality buys ground-penetrating radar and lends out for visitors. As an event of vitalizing tourism projects in the deserted area, the experience of searching buried treasure may be promising.

Anyway, there are lots of legends of buried treasures in various regions in Japan. With the assistance of ground-penetrating radar, the day of discovery of Sumitomo Fujiwara’s treasure may become nearer than before.

Yahoo auction watch (2) A Google-related book.

Book title: Reconnoitering the world secret military bases by Google-Earth. (With attached CD-ROM.)

Tag line: Bloodiest battlefields of the past, conflict zones and nuclear-testing sites. Strategically important strongholds are exposed to the light of day.

Yahoo auction watch (1) Nintendo’s old trump came up.

The word “本見” printed on eight of spades card is the right-to-left horizontal writing of a word “見本: A Sample”. As right-to-left horizontal writing was much more common before 1940, this item might have been produced during pre-ENIAC age. Even in this DS blooming age, we can enjoy playing poker games with this one. Development of a new kind of card game may be possible.

hx4700 + WiFisnap on willcom 03

As 30 days of trial period was coming to an end, I purchased WiFisnap, software from netvision corporation. During this trial period, I just one time succeeded in internet access by WiFisnap+Safari on ipod-touch. The success rate was very low and what conditions make it possible to connect internet was still unclear. I varied the relative position between willcom 03 and ipod-touch, but it seemed to have no relation. Meanwhile, the success rate by WiFisnap+i.e. on hx4700 was high. In the case of WiFisnap+i.e., the reason of being impossible to connect seemed to be related to the 03’s state of charge and PHS electric wave status. Finally, I replaced the hx4700’s OS into WM6. After that, WiFisnap+i.e on WM6 works not so slowly. Though operability of Safari on ipod is excellent, I feel myself compelled to use SDHC+CF to assemble various MyFavorites folders separately composed for various mobile situation. Battery discharging is rapid for both 03 and 4700. Both auxilialy batteries are available by around 2,000-3,000 yen through Yahoo auction.

A newly-released potato chips

Rock salt produced in Sicilia is used for salting. Though many blogs in Japan praise its salty taste, I sadly wasn't able to sense the difference between usual salt and Sicilian salt.

Ingredients in rice balls sold at convenience stores (3).

These days, production area of salt used in food processing seems to be a decisive factor for promoting food sales. A product shown in this photo uses salt produced in Bizen district facing the Inland sea.

Are there hidden messages in BBC Newspod?

I usually use iPod for listening to podcast programs such as CBS evening news (video), BBC Newspod (audio) or NBC nightly news (video) to improve my listening ability. In particular, Newspod is interesting. Topics related to Japan are taken up sometimes. One day, I noticed that there existed certain deviation in the topics taken up related to Japan. I was intrigued about the reason why such deviation came up. The reason why deviation occurs can be explained by following factors. 1) Unintentional bias, which exists in the correspondent, editor or producer. 2) Existence of topics, which is not urgent or pressing but inserted to imply something, which couldn’t be expressed directly in words. For example, if a correspondent caught a rumor that aged person would be next Japanese prime minister but there was not sufficient credible assurance, a topic on aging society in Japan would be chosen. And the possibility of aged person being an important position would be discussed partially in the topic. Though this is only a guess of mine, owing to this finding, I can stop dropping out of listening to Newspod regularly.

Trying out WIFISNAP of Netvision Corp

WWDC 2009 is coming up. Though I want to be a user of iphone, choice of WIFIsnap on 03 + iPod touch also seemed attractive. As to routerizing of 03, it worked easily. But, I still can’t succeed in accessing internet from Safari on my iPod touch. Meanwhile, WIFIsnap on 03 + hx4700 +i.e. worked easily. So far, I scarcely used hx4700, but it could change. Hx4700 has become attractive with WIFIsnap on 03. Compact flash card and SDHC can be attached in parallel. Total file management efficiency seems to be better under overall system containing Windows-based equipments and various kinds of single item hardware such as digital cameras with SDHC. There are many industrial instruments, which adopt only compact flash card as a storage medium. In addition, reserve batteries are available. When I think about these points carefully, I notice that its attractiveness is the reverse side of iPod’s excellence. The success of iPod is standing on top of the sacrifice of industrial, heavy-duty and scientific field's possibilities.      

Abolition of Kure-Matsuyama ferry line was decided.

Major newspapers reported yesterday that the formal decision was made to discontinue the Kure-Matsuyama ferry line. The line will be unavailable from July 1st 2009. The reduction in ETC’s fare since this spring seemed to accelerate the deteriorating financial condition, which had already been caused by the opening of Shimanami expressway in 1999 and price hike of oil in 2008. This ferry line was started in 1964. If other remaining ferry lines continue to vanish one after another in the days ahead, it may surely lead to undermining the valuable image of this area formed over long period of time. If the ferry services were lost completely, this area would lose one of the unique appealing images.

Carriage of bicycles on this ferry is allowed by paying an additional charge. An additional charge of 600 yen per a bicycle is required.

Hostel Referrals through a newly published book.

This book introduces 250 unique hostels to such a reader as is interested in going one’s own trips. Three hostels located on the Inland Sea islands are also included in 250 hostels. After flipping through the pages, I notice the difference of activeness between every region in Japan. Several articles on Hostels located at Highlands in Central Japan attract me in particular. I think that new segment of tourism will be born there and become popular in future. Though such styles as Central Highlands may not apply directly to the Inland Sea islands, we can learn something from their cases. Written in Japanese. In the article of each hostel, there is a WEB address of the hostel on the pages. 1,429Yen.

Route two along the Inland Sea.

Route one connects between Tokyo and Osaka. Route two connects between Osaka and Kitakyushu. The coastal cities located on the north side of the Inland Sea belong to zones around Route 2. This photograph shows a traffic sign on the Route 2. The names of three major cities are on the board. Himeji city is famous for Himeji-jou castle. Kobe city was hit by big earthquake in 1995 and recovered from the damage of the earthquake. Okayama city occupies an important position in railway transportations. From a viewpoint of tourism, Kobe is an independent tourist destination solely, though included in the Inland Sea zones. Himeji too. Meanwhile, we should not require Okayama to be like Kobe or Himeji. Strategically, Okayama should not be a tourist resort but play important roles as a Hub supporting the Inland Sea area.

 I would like to express my sincere condolence to the earthquake victims in Italy.

The Collectors.

A series of rituals accompanying with the 62nd Sengu of Ise shrine are going to reach the final stage in 2013. The Sengu of Ise has been conducted every 20 years since 1300 years ago. The previous 61th Sengu was conducted in 1993 and various memorial goods were sold then. Those memorial goods, I predict, will be promising targets for some kind of collectors. The memorial items sold in 1993, 1973, 1949 (postponed to 1953), 1929, 1909, …… can be found in Yahoo auctions. Perhaps, numbers of specialized collectors may increase in this field. As regards 1993, existence of various telephone cards symbolized the era. In 1973, the time before last, telephone card had not been sold.

 I think 59^th will be interesting segment in particular. In Yahoo auctions, a book on 59^th is sold for 1,000 yen. At least scholars in 22c will pay for it more than future value of 1,000 yen today. Even in the era of search engines, book would still continue being a contemplated existence for scholars related to history.

Ingredients in rice balls sold at convenience stores (2).

Sea tangle takes up a quiet position among the various kinds of ingredient contained in rice balls. As regards its taste, in my opinion, using sea tangle as an ingredient of rice balls is quite difficult, because their seasoning requires very delicate adjustment. For me, most sea tangle in rice balls sold at convenience stores tastes too sweet and every time I occasionally eat them, I feel as if I eat candies. But, if they were sold without strong seasoning, the sales would soon drop. In today’s cookery, the condiments are excessively used and the equilibrium point of sweetness is set too high. In such conditions, subtle difference of the taste of the stuff become under noise level. Innovations in seasoning methods are required.

Ingredients in rice balls sold at convenience stores.

Pickled plums are the most orthodox and major ingredients used for rice balls. The Kanji description '紀州' on the package of a rice ball in this photograph means the pickled plums contained were produced in Kishu district. Kishu was the old name of Wakayama prefecture and Wakayama is famous for nice plum production. As the youngster’s tastes tend to be oriented for meat ingredients today, the rice balls containing pickled plums seem to be becoming less popular. Mixture with perilla leaves also is a popular ingredient for rice balls. Mixing with other vegetables may be an interesting trial for the development of new ingredients, because new kinds of vegetable ingredients are required for busy persons who have to take enough nutrients in vegetables even by a hurried meal of rice balls. The price of rice ball in the photo is 105 yen. The Hiragana expression 'ねり' in center below of the seal means that contained pickled plums were knead. You can also find not-knead type pickled plums from which the seed was not removed.

Sami beach

When I try to evaluate essential value of things, the first thing I do is to find what doesn’t exist nevertheless that is indispensable in the situation. In this case of Sami beach, I feel, viewpoint from tourism and new concept of seasonal restaurants don’t exist.  This beach can be a good component of nice tour course designed for domestic tourists from eastern part of Japan in summer season. A rough idea of the course is as follows.

Get out of Kodama super express at Shinkurashiki station. -> View old premises and historic districts in Kurashiki and Tamashima districts. -> See sunset seascape of Sami beach and have a dinner. Perhaps,  new type of seasonal restaurant or cafe may be required for the tourists visiting this bathing beach firstly opened in Japan. 

2009 tourist season has come.

2009 tourist season has come. If you have a plan on visiting Onomichi city and are interested in architectures of old temples, this book would be helpful, though written in only Japanese. The four temples in Onomichi city, Joudoji, Saigouji, Saigokuji and Tenneiji are analyzed from the view point of a shrine carpenter. The book title means nearly ‘Visiting 1000 years old temples with a shrine carpenter’ . (Pocketbook.571Yen)

1934.3.16

It has been 75 years since this area was appointed the Setonaikai National Park on March 16, 1934, as one of three oldest national parks in Japan. But after that, many important tidelands have been lost due to the industrialization during these 75 years. The way to Environment Conscious marine-oriented tourist resort has been almost closed during our parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Though the conditions are not so good, I want to believe that new segments in tourism become promising owing to rapid industrialization.  

The possibilities of Android applications.

In JR train stations many posters advertising tourist resorts are put on the wall. Most of Japanese people can perceive the message at a glance and pass by them without serious attention when not interested. But for foreigners who don’t have enough knowledge can’t get adequate information even if attracted by the photo on the poster. I think OCR bar code for foreign tourists should be marked on such posters that can be read by cell phones with Chrome terminal that enable to display the search results automatically. Typing any characters into keypad or pushing buttons may be troublesome in such situations. If the poster couldn't catch the moment, the scenery photo would be mostly forgotten.

Similar situation will appear also in car advertising and therefore applications in that segment may be promising. To catch design-sensitive car fans, real streets on the ground can be the most powerful showrooms of cars. If some foreign person happened to encounter a favorite type design unknown car running on the street, and its photo was taken with G-phone camera, the car name could be displayed by image processing program on the phone. Developing such application seems to be becoming more realistic since the appearance of Android.

Perhaps, application in the apparel industry seems to be interesting, if linked with sensitivity engineering.

(Above illustration is from the CD attached to the Book 'Selections from figured paper in Kyoto and Japanese patterns' published by Impress Japan.)

Beyond the limitation of sushi’s popularity

The more sushi become popular in the world, an anxiety for the shortage of the fishery resource seems to be more realistic. Even if the resource problems are solved, the environmental load by transportation of raw fishes into inland part of continental Nations couldn't be negligible. Consequently, the rapid expansion of demand for extra-popular fishes, shortage of their supplies and the formation of expensive image will finally lead to downward transition of sushi’s popularity. Both good quality and low price consist only in sea Nation like Japan or UK. Forecasting such new phase, I think the chefs and restaurant owners may have to reconsider their strategies. There may be many ways. My idea about it is that the key point exists in the combination of cheap ingredients. Even if popular ingredients become expensive, combinations of cheap ingredients can substitute and exceed them. The originality of the combination would be a watershed. My favorite combinations are, cheap shells, Nattomaki and Arajiru miso soup. I feel such combinations are more delicious than any other expensive single ingredients. Those combinations are almost overlapped with the realm of traditional Japanese dishes. Perhaps, there may be fusion segments around the border between sushi and traditional Japanese dishes. And those segments may be environmental-friendly. The targets of investigations are, for example, miso soup's ingredients, varieties of soy sauces, introductions of new shells and seaweeds. The combination with Oden as a healthy side dish may be an interesting sales style. For tourism in this area, combinations with fishing charter boat seem to be interesting. Some fishing charter boat already give 'Fish-and-Eat fresh raw fishes on the boat' services. But, the innovations of the facility for sushi cooking on small boat may be required for tourism of the Inland Sea.

High adaptability

I recently knew that 22th Feb. had been approved as the Oden day by Japan Memorial Day Association. When the Oden sales by convenience stores started, there was a criticism that such an excessive service was deviated from traditional way of commerce. I also felt the strangeness when I heard it and thought that such sales style wouldn't last long. But after many years have passed, I understand that the service completely fits in the modern store-commerce style. The reason of its success can be explained by the concept of the 'ADAPTABILITY of a dish'. Highly adaptable dish has a power to fit in any style of stores and potentials to keep the sales even under completely different cultures. Perhaps, Oden has the same level of adaptability as fried chicken or fried potato that also seem to be very popular in convenience stores. I once bought both Oden and fried potato at the same time on the occasion of visiting convenience store. The birth of such peculiar combination of two different food cultures may not be a coincidence. That’s the encounter of two food menus of ‘high adaptability’. The future of Oden in the world would be beyond our imagination.

Word-Group theory.

When using search engines, I strongly feel the absence of a theory which can be named like Word-Group theory.　Text mining methods are already developed but that's incomplete. One of the key factors in Word-Group theory may be the 'Singularity' of a word in the context. And the 'Entropy' of each sentence also can be defined. By defining such kinds of indices, the search efficiencies may be improved. The most important conclusion of this theory may be that categorical classification and management of extravagant texts, the border of which change rapidly are inefficient and defining good indices is indispensable for making good search engines. The risk of wrong categorization may not be negligible. The spaces between the real threads of spider’s web are not so narrow.

The advantages of using Baidu search engine

I found that in some cases the Baidu search engine can reveal nice filtering effects that can eliminate unnecessary search results more sharply. In one case, I was able to get enough search results by using only Baidu, while other search engines can’t eliminate extravagant unnecessary search results. This may be concerned with the characteristics of Japanese language. Japanese words are mixtures of Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana characters. In some situation Japanese people avoid using Kanji and exchange Kanji words for the Hiragana expression on purpose. Such frequently-Hiraganized words may be difficult to discriminate from other Japanese Hiragana particles in the process of search engine algorithms. That can be one of the reasons of low sharpness of the word-filtering. Baidu search engine seems to be advanced a little in this point. Perhaps they have to solve the problem that the permutation of each Kanji characters can have every different meanings in the sentences written in Chinese. For Japan the evaluation of frequencies of Hiraganizing or Katakanizing is indispensable for creating good search algorithms.

(Above illustration is from the CD attached to the Book 'Selections from figured paper in Kyoto and Japanese patterns' published by Impress Japan.)

An essential condition for sea nation

Before I came to live in this area, I thought that the sea existed OUTSIDE of our living place. The world we live consists of only land and if we throw pollutant into the sea, it goes out to another planet. But after spending years in this area, I notice that the sea exist INSIDE us. The pollutant returns back to our living place. Understanding this simple principle may lead to being a good sea nation.

(Above illustration is from the CD attached to the Book 'Selections from figured paper in Kyoto and Japanese patterns' published by Impress Japan.)

A rough idea of tour course

I roughly designed a tour course which includes cycling path.

Kobe city------ >Shodoshima (by ferry)
Shodoshima ------> Takamatsu city (by ferry)
Takamatsu city------> Kojima city (by train)
Kojima city------> Tamano city (by bicycle)
Tamano city------> Okayama city (by train)
Okayama city------> Onomichi city (by train)
Onomichi city------> Imabari city (by bicycle)
Imabari city------> Matsuyama city (by bus)
Matsuyama airport------> Itami Airport (Osaka)

http://maps.google.co.jp/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=116572915995856921863.00046095f182a83156dd0&ll=34.966999

,133.220215&spn=2.529766,2.796021&z=8

(Above illustration is from the CD attached to the Book 'Selections from figured paper in Kyoto and Japanese patterns' published by Impress Japan.)

Changes of Googlemap map-window

During the New Year Week, I brought my terminal outside and accessed my maps through nearby WiFi points in town. Even under severe conditions, I was able to operate my maps briskly. But last week the map-window system in Googlemap has changed. After that, I'm still not able to get right images of my maps. The placemarks are not displayed. And the previous system seems to be easier to handle.

A picture postcard published in 1970s

A view from Mt. Washuzan.

(Taken in the age when the Great Seto Bridge was still not built.)

Pine branches are used for ornamentation during the New Year Week in Japan.

http://maps.google.co.jp/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=116572915995856921863.00046012667be101b07ce&ll=34.433178,133.825235&spn=0.043749,0.049524&z=14