HATSU-MOUDE(the first shrine visit of the year)

Happy New Year! Today most of Japanese go to nearby JIN-JA(shrine, holy place of Japanese Shinto). Most of Japanese is not devout, they don't have deep religious feeling, so this is the first and the last visit of them. It is just an annual event.

SHIN-BUTSU-SHU^GO^ (word for word 'God-Buddha-Fusion') is a character of Japanese religion. Because of our traditional religion (Japanese Shinto) is a polytheism so when Buddhism came in Japan Buddha was considered as 'another god in the neighbor country'. It made Japanese tolerance of other religions. Most of Japanese celebrate Christmas, visit a Shinto shrine on new year day and mourn the deceaded in Buddhism style.

The number of people who visited shrine in the first three day is 98.18 millions (in 2008, according to National Police Agency). The most visited shrine is MEIJI-JINGU^ in Tokyo, 3.17 millions. MEIJI-JINGU^ is the shrine dedicated to the memory of the Meiji Emperor. I and my family always visit ISHI-KIRI-TSURUGI-YA Shrine (means stone-cut-sword-arrow) because it is the nearest. It is dedicated to NIGIHAYAHI god, lived before the first emperor come to here. But I didn't know it till yesterday. It is not important for me.

See also: Shinbutsu shūgō - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and Hatsumōde - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

OO-MISOKA: the last day of the year

Today is OO-MISOKA(大晦日): the last day of the year. OO means 'grand, large' and 'MISOKA' means the last day of the month. 'MISOKA' is consisted of 3 sounds 'MI'(three), 'SO'(ten) and 'KA'(day). 'MISOJI'(三十路) means 30 to 40 years old.

Why '30th day' had meant the last day, not 31th day? It is because the lunar calendar used in Japan before AD1873. The 31th day did not exist in those days.

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Today most of Japanese eat a noodle 'TOSHI-KOSHI-SOBA'(beyond the year noodle). The long noodles represent the long life.

[EAYP2008]Extreme Ad hoc Year-end Party 2008

We welcome the New Year while writing the code in a separate place.
so we don't need to get together when we hold a party.
We can take communication with skype, share the code with github.

We are calling this the Extreme Ad hoc Year-end Party 2008 [EAYP2008].

Of course, we also developped the official site which can check the situation of a party on real time.

http://xa.yuiseki.net/

We wrote the code while drinking sake after the comic market.

Comiket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Comiket (コミケット, Komiketto?), otherwise known as the Comic Market (コミックマーケット, Komikku Māketto?) or CM, is the world's largest comic convention, held twice a year in Tokyo, Japan.[1] The first CM was held in December 1975, with only about 32 participating circles and an estimated 600 attendees.[2] Attendance has since swelled to nearly a half million people.[1] It is a grassroots, DIY effort for selling dōjinshi, self-published Japanese works. As items sold in CM are considered very rare (because dōjinshi are seldom reprinted), some items sold at CM can be found in shops or on the Internet at prices up to 10 times the item's original price.

The continuing operation of CM is the responsibility of the Comic Market Preparatory Committee (CMPC).

75th Comic Market, held in Japan!!

Hi, this is takano32.
75th Comic Market, held in Japan(Ariake, Big Sight) from 12/28 to 12/30.This is the most famous comic flea market, so the scale of market is no longer flea.







What a many people there are!

See! People look like grit and dust!!

Some of them may really dust...

These years, the market is larger and larger, their manner is distinctly worse.





By the way, Comic Market is also good taste for hackers.

Some of circles, the teams for Comic Market, are selling books for hack, displaying out-of-the-way computer and so on.

Comic Market must be very exciting event for all over the hackers in the World and the Internet!

Hacker 's Cafe occupied the Linux cafe in Akihabara

Hacker 's Cafe occupied the Linux cafe in Akihabara.
秋葉原にあるリナックスカフェは、我々Hacker's Cafeが占拠した！

The electronic parts of various kinds are sold in Akihabara.

Fork outlet is mobiler manner

Hi, this is takano32.
In Japan some of restaurant let us use outlet.
But, many people want to use outlet.People often quarrel over about outlet of rights.

So, mobiler, hackers kicking around out, effort to fork outlet, and let many people be able to use outlet.

We always kick around with tap to fork outlet.
It's manner of mobiler.

At the party after Firefox Developers Conference 2008

At the party after Firefox Developers Conference 2008, we wrote the code while drinking sake(JAPANESE alcoholic drink).

In the Japanese McDonald, a power supply is free to use.

This label says "It is an outlet for laptops. Feel free to use."

We are HAI-JIN

HAI-JIN(廃人) is a Japanese word, pronounce like 'high gene'. However its meaning is similar to 'geek' or 'nerd'. HAI-KI-BUTSU(廃棄物) means 'waste', HAI-SHI(廃止) means 'obsolete' and HAI-JIN means 'a person in bad state' for example drug-addiction. You know, we are all web-addicted and PC-addicted. Some of us is also game-addicted. Happy HAI-JIN life!!

We look back at the year with laptops

We look back at the year, often carrying in and coding a notebook PC to Bar.

Hacking the Skype Chat

using rubygems "Ruby4Skype" (on windows...) :



Now, We can mash up the web information and skype chat.

I'm studying about ARToolKit.

New editor: NISHIO Hirokazu

Hi, I'm NISHIO Hirokazu, a Jython book author, now joined to this blog! I'm now interested in CUDA and OpenCV.

I have also been interested in origin of words. For example, my family name "NISHIO" is made of two characters "NISHI"(west) and "O"(tail). "O" has same origin with "WO"(fish) so my ancestor might be a fisher. "NISHIO" is pronounces like "knee see awe" but shorter. My given name "Hirokazu" is made of two characters "HIRO" and "KAZU". "HIRO" is pronounced like a hero. It means "big" and "calmful". (Wiktionary). "KAZU" is pronounced like a cousin without "n". It means "peace" and "harmony". (Wiktionary).

Feel free to ask me if you have any questions about Japanese words!

Japanese Shinkansen

"Shinkansen" is most high speed Train in Japan(Super Super Express).
It runs Tokyo to Osaka. It takes 2:40 for 550 km.

According to "Shinkansen" is very high speed、but It comes par 10 mins and it lates less than 10mins.

"Shinkansen" is very useful one of infrastruction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D_Shinkansen
http://english.jr-central.co.jp/index.html

J:
新幹線は、日本の地上で走ってる、もっとも速い鉄道車両です。
東京－大阪約550kmを約2時間40分で走っています。

これだけ高速で移動しているにも関わらず、新幹線は10分に一本の割合でやってきて、ほとんど遅延なしで走っています。遅れるとしてもせいぜい数分です。

新幹線はとても大事なインフラの一つです。