Shack Attack

Tumbling

I discovered Tumblr today, an amazing little stream-of-consciousness blogging tool. I'll still be using this one to get coherent ideas down, but I see the tumblog turning into more of a running account of my mind and my life at any given time. It's made for letting you post whatever you run into, be it a conversation, photo, movie, thought, or quote, and displaying it in a really pretty way. Check it out here.

A Revelation Over Dinner

I was out for dinner with a friend, and she had a handout from one of her English classes. It focused on essay-writing, and why English-speakers often have a hard time following Japanese writing, even when the translation is spot-on from sentence to sentence. Further study of this is probably in order for me, but fundamentally, a common Japanese essay form has a component called the ten, which can best be explained as a sub-theme introduced right before the conclusion with no immediately apparent connection to anything at all. Well, that certainly explains a lot.

Okay, I may be over-simplifying a bit, but not by much. This guide introduced concepts such as "make it clear how each point relates to your theme" as utterly foriegn, and urged the reader to try to use them even if they seemed odd. It explained that while Japanese writing and rhetoric holds the reader/listener responsible for deciphering bimyou/aimai (ambiguous) passages or points, American rhetoric places that responsibility on the author. Apparently the Japanese rarely do drafts or rewrites. Japanese essays do tend to tie the ten back into the main theme in the conclusion, and the guide recommends that if students have a ten, that they preface it with a request to forgive abrupt transition in theme, and have faith that it will be clarified in the conclusion. In my experience, however, "clarified" is pretty generous; I haven't run into much rhetorical writing that would pass your usual American tests for arguments or logic.

I wish I could get away with that in college.

Al Qaeda Supports McCain (yay!)

From The New York Times:

“Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” read a commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group’s propaganda.

The endorsement left the McCain campaign sputtering, and noting helplessly that Hamas appears to prefer Barack Obama. Al Qaeda’s apparent enthusiasm for Mr. McCain is manifestly not reciprocated....

.....Yet the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn’t a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in the coming days to tip the election to him.

“From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting,” said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more likely to continue those policies.

An American president who keeps troops in Iraq indefinitely, fulminates about Islamic terrorism, inclines toward military solutions and antagonizes other nations is an excellent recruiting tool. In contrast, an African-American president with a Muslim grandfather and a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give Al Qaeda recruiters fits...

(full story at The New York Times)

Looks like stuff's finally looking up for us. I leave you with humorously-captioned election-related photos from the ever-wonderful Pundit Kitchen Lol News Repository:

see Sarah Palin pictures
see Sarah Palin pictures
see Sarah Palin pictures

You Shall Not Pound The Ground In Anger

I love the signage in this country.

Mag-not-so-safe

For the whole time I've had it, the power adapter for my macbook has gotten hotter than I expected it to, but since I've been here, the cable plugging into the computer started discoloring, fraying, and eventually developed a dangerous-looking hole. Being a man, of course, I paid no attention to the electrocution hazard, and when it stopped working, I realized that if I taped the cable in the exact right position on the desk, it would come alive again.

This worked for about a week. Last week, though, it completely ate it. I thought I was out 9800 yen (about $100, or maybe $150 if the exchange rate keeps plummeting), but then I discovered this post on The Unofficial Apple Weblog: "Apple is now replacing (free of charge) frayed, discolored and deformed MagSafe power adapters for MacBook and MacBook Pro."

This looks pretty frayed, discolored, and deformed to me:

I had heard that it was hard to get the replacement outside of the states, but a quick trip to the Shibuya Apple Store (make an appointment if you need the Genius Bar), and one of the guys apologetically sorted me out with a brand-new adapter. If you've got a cord that looks like mine, go in to your local Apple Store and give it a go. It doesn't matter if you're out of the warranty period, but you do need to bring the serial number of the laptop it came with.