Interestingness Rediscovered

Pseudo-Kindle experience 2/2: ownership and mobility are what matters + some poems work

I read the Kindle edition of Do You? (on my computer), a collection of poems and photos that touch our soul gently and sharply. The following is my favorite passage. (Is there anybody who considers herself a writer who has not had this experience?)

Unvoiced stress gnaws at my brain at night before dreams take hold,
grinding teeth and clenching jaw,
bottled emotions bubbling under the surface.
I have no choice but to listen to my inner voice,
It commands me
to record my thoughts and feelings.

I also felt the desire to carry the book around, not just view it on my desktop display. I might want to re-read these lines on a whim: on the road, in the office, at a coffee shop. For me, reading good passages is not about digesting information; it is about reminding myself what, why, and who I am, a simple collection of awareness which unfortunately needs periodical maintenance. We sometimes need to look back in order to move forward.

Does it mean that I am going to order a paper version? Well, probably I am going to get a real Kindle and download my favorite books into it, along with one hundred other books. Yes, I am selling out and I am fine with it. What matters is not the physical form—the sense of ownership and mobility is.

Steve Jobs once said “People want to own their music” when he was explaining why Apple considered iTunes as a retail, not rental, business. He was dead on, and the same idea goes for books. Both music and books allow us to have a transforming experience within the reach of our hands.

In other words, when it comes to reading, what matters is being able to carry the book around and have “an experience” when I feel like it. We do not care that much about the package. Come to think of it, it was never about the package no matter how we associate our love for books with their appearances.

E-books also allow us to pick the relevant part in a book easily. I frequently worry about what to do with books with one good chapter and nine irrelevant ones. For example, I have Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start, a collection of practical tips for starting businesses written almost five years ago, before the financial crisis. Why keep it? For reading the parts that are still relevant, and learning from his experience, such as this:

Bill Reichert, a managing director of Garage, likes to tell entrepreneurs that the odds of raising venture capital are equal to the odds of getting stuck by lightening while standing on the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day. He’s exaggerating. The odds aren’t that good.

I used to think of Kindle and other e-book readers as the brute force that destroys the good old relationship between books and us. How wrong was I. Though I haven’t owned an ebook reader yet, when I have one I am sure it will reinforce my connection/affection toward books, because the pleasure of book-reading—carrying a book around and reading it on a whim of passion—is exactly what the e-book readers delivers better than their paper counterparts.

P.S. Reading Do You? also freed me from thinking that poems were meant to be collections of undecipherable statements that defy logic and grammar and meaning. Here is another great poem, Before I was a Mom/Dad, that opened my eyes in a similar manner.

Before I was a Dad,
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn’t want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn’t stop the hurt.
I never knew something so small could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Dad.

...However, not having had a child yet, I must confess the only part I truly get for now is the following.

Before I was a Dad
I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing.
I had quiet conversations on the phone.

Pseudo-Kindle experience 1/2: distribution democratized

I had my first Kindle book experience (on my computer). Here are the steps I took:

1. Purchase (= download) the book (30 seconds)
2. Install the Kindle Reader for PC (3 minutes)
3. Read the book (30 minutes)
4. Write this blog entry (3 hours)

This post is about my thoughts on the first bullet: purchasing an e-book. The next entry will deal with the third: reading an e-book. I might be chopping a blog post in half too many times. I will deal with it—in a two-part blog entry.

When I downloaded the Kindle book in 30 seconds (including the check-out process), I felt that personal publication has been liberated. Amazon.com says so too. Gone are the days of an author tracing a myriad of distribution channel threads before reaching his audience, a situation described in a blog post written by a literary agent.

He'd paid to print 500 hardcover copies, and was pursuing local and national bookstore chains and distributors. But he'd hit a brick wall, finding that most buyers and distributors were not interested in talking to him.

Let’s picture a suit-wearing backpacker carrying weightlifting plates in the form of hardcovers and pleading the bookstores to adopt his love child (= books). The agent’s advice to this author was straightforward, which is always the best way to give it.

But I told him that his problems getting distribution are the main reason self-publishing doesn't work for many people. If you don't have a channel through which YOU can sell your book, then self publishing usually isn't a profitable option. And by a channel, I mean something you're doing yourself: You're out speaking and selling your book in the back of the room. You're the pastor of a 10,000 member church and you sell it through your church bookstore. You have a terrific website or blog that gets 100,000 hits a month and your book is featured for sale there. Or something like that.

She talked about two issues: getting distributed and getting recognized. The writer thought the former was the key to get published. She reminded him it was the latter. The story is sad, but I think ultimately it is about hope. I guess the reason she could focus on the more important aspect, recognition, is because the distribution problem is becoming irrelevant. Do you count thirty seconds and three clicks away a considerable barrier that stand between the author and readers?

The recognition, the Holy Grail, deals with a resource that cannot be duplicated: our attention. Hugh Macleod summarizes it dryly: “Human beings don’t scale.” We aren’t closer to this Holy Grail than ten years ago, but it is visible now. How encouraging is this for writers?

P.S. At least on the Kindle platform, if we set the price right, we can instantly have a kick-ass marketing campaign. Enjoy a threesome: 3 seconds, 3 clicks, 3 dollars. I am sorry; I won’t do it again, in this post.

Typepad, Tumblr, Twitter ecosystem 2/2: news programs on TV

The last entry described the similarity between blogging platforms (Typepad, Tumblr, and Twitter) and our (fantasy) partners. This time, it is about news programs on the TV.

Blogging platforms as news programs on the TV: Typepad is the headline news with nice-looking anchors and computer monitors in the background showing market data (sometimes not). Tumblr is the "rest" tucked after the major news with purposefully less-gorgeous anchors and pseudo-Excel bullet point lists. Twitter is the annoying messages (okay, news) that appear at the bottom or top of the screen. Each has an equally important role, as media companies preach to us, but some roles are always more equal than others.

Typepad: headlines

• Detailed analysis (Typepad is where the “carefully crafted pieces of informative writing with...” comes in. Whatever.)
• Storytelling (Using Typepad, I try to tell a story. Using Tumblr and Twitter, I try to draw a picture.)
• Multimedia (Texts, videos, images, and even audio can be combined into one.)

Tumblr: today's other news

• Listed (Tumblr posts are updated daily and are vertically streamed.)
• Some picked, some not (The good thing about viewing lists is that as an audience you feel like you covered everything just by looking at the titles.)
• Background can be glamorous, main cast not (You cannot hide the fact that each post is short,  both in terms of content and the amount of attention paid, compared with Typepad)

Twitter: sidebar fillers

• Real-time (Twitter streams are updated so frequently, the window opportunity for each tweet is less than 0.5 seconds. Of course, that short attention span is exactly why Twitter is so useful.)
• Single sentence (To express something meaningful in 140 characters, you have to eliminate everything non-essential, sometimes even punctuation.)
• "Hook" for new audience (140 characters are still long enough to express funny/intriguing/controversial ideas. They do stop me from switching channels: i.e. surfing the web.)

What analogy you might use for the ecosystem created by your multiple blogging/writing platforms?

Typepad, Tumblr, Twitter ecosystem 1/2: our partners

I have three Ts for my writing platform: Typepad, Twitter, and Tumblr. Typepad, one of the oldest blogging services, is where the main posts reside; carefully crafted pieces of informative writings with deep insights and top- notch humor. I'm allowed to dream on.

Tumblr, going one step from Typepad toward social media, is great for sharing contents that are abundant but still too short for full-fledged posts: quotes from books, photos with comments, and collection of 80s music video clips.

Twitter, going one more step from Tumblr toward social media, is where I broadcast my updates, poke/stalk strangers, hijack contents (retweet), and share ideas that are too short/silly to form articles. Tweets fade away quickly, so I can be even more shameless here.

Surprisingly, I am not confused about how to use these three platforms, despite their blurry distinctions, overlapping features (and names). Nobody taught me; for each platform, after a few days of usage, I was able to transform myself from an awkward test driver to a semi-pro racer. Again, I am allowed to dream on.

I could do so probably because I subconsciously applied real-world analogies to the aforementioned three platforms: in particular, our partners and news programs. It is time to pull them out in the sunshine and see if we can extract some useful lessons.

Blogging platforms as our partners: Typepad is my spouse, and Twitter and Tumblr are my lovers (again and again, I am allowed to...). It might not be a coincidence that these three platforms have similar names; we keep choosing the same type of people as our partners no matter how many times they (we) disappoint us (them), right?

Typepad: spouse

• Won't go anywhere, been there for a long time (SixApart, the company that hosts Typepad, is the pioneer of blogging - they won't go down, despite having rough times. I hope.)
• Most accepting of all three (Typepad allows writing long and short posts, texts and multimedia. Various widgets are available too, including Twitter and Tumblr plug-ins. How generous is it? I know, everybody enjoys content-swapping these days)
• High maintenance (Typepad requires monthly fee. It also takes god-awful long hours to write a blog entry, though it's not Typepad's fault)

Tumblr: lover #1: the fantasy housewife

• Feels both familiar and fresh (Tumblr allows me to create blog-like posts in a Twitter-like interface)
• Low maintenance, no strings attached (No monthly fee is required. And writing each entry is easier than in Typepad because it is short. Tumblr is an ideal place when I have fewer ideas, less time/energy but would like to write something)
• Not quite enough to satisfy hunger for words (Like eating fast-food does not quite substitute for a good old home-cooked dinner. Didn’t Paul Newman say “Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?” (Uh, it was about NOT cheating on his spouse.) Tumblr is fun, but eventually I sit down in front of that bulky Typepad interface to write something meaty.

Twitter: lover #2: the social gal

• Parties all the time (Twitter allows me to have interesting interactions with total strangers)
• Ideal for one-night stand (Many Twitter interactions are spontaneous, supported by the whim of passion)
• Easy come, easy go (There is no requirements for fee and permission to follow or unfollow someone)

Continued to the second part, the news programs analogy...

Five fantasy games in scuba diving (NSFL: Not Safe For Lunch)

I have been attached to weird sea creatures throughout my life. Probably it stems from my days in Malta, when my dad used to take us to the beach and taught us to catch snails, which later ended up on our dining table. They looked ugly alive, and even uglier on the dish. *

When I was into scuba diving in Japan, I was the only one crashing over crown-of-thorns starfish while everybody else was searching for cute sea slugs. The scuba instructor gave me the nickname King of Eccentricdom and we liked it so much we went around broadcasting it all over the diving groups. Before I knew it, I was attracting self-made marine biologists (men) and repelling bikini girls, for good.

Time passed and I became wise enough not to disclose my real taste too soon. But recently I have been subscribing to Authentic Realities and I had a moment: screw that, I am going to be real. So here is one of those baby steps: Five creatures that should give me the same effect as a pill of Ecstasy.

Nemertea Worm

Siphonophore

Blobfish

Tongue-eating louse

Frilled Shark

* Years later I re-visited the Mediterranean sea from the other side, on a beach in Israel. There were gigantic jellyfish--imagine transparent Domino pizza with extra topping--all over the place. Some   people ignored them, some poked them, and some did the Russian-roulette jellyfish catch. You know, the one who first catches it on the wrong side loses. And I reinforced my childhood nightmares.

The news industry is dead. 2/2 Learn from Mario.

Recently I am all over advice on blogging and much of it tells me to insert a provocative, unexpected element into the title. So I chose Mario. They didn’t say I have to appear intelligent.

The 1D trap

Continued from the last entry... Until a decade ago, news media competed on only one metric: speed. * The slower ones could survive because overall, delivery speed was far slower and readers were regionally segregated, less aware of other choices. Once the net came in and the winner took it all, there was little room left for the rest. In fact, the astonishing thing is not that most of them are dying, but that most have survived to this date.

Ask Mario: Super Mario Brothers (1985). Run through the field, defeat enemies, make out with the princess.

The lost 2D frontiers

So, the one dimension of speed isn’t enough to give media an advantage. The next logical way forward is to jump to the two-dimensional world: different topics. Only…that is not enough. News media could try to branch into niche-categories, but all of them are already taken. When you find websites dedicated to different flavors of KitKat (> 100) or instant noodles (> 4000), you know the wild frontier of niche topics does not exist anymore.

Ask Mario: Super Mario 64 (1996). Explore the field, defeat enemies, make out with the princess.

The final way out: 3D

The only way left to go is three-dimensional. I am not talking about depth, although that is important. Here, 3D is about creating your own planet with your own rules. Competing on the same metrics or in the same area is over. It is time to get out of competition.

Ask Mario: Super Mario Galaxy (2007). Fly around the space, defeat enemies, make out with the princess.

Okay then...

We understand we've got to be the only one of something, a unique existence. How? That is going to be the topic of another entry. One of those blog advisers said “Milk your content as much as possible.” Maybe they used different words, such as “have a stock of ideas,” but I am sure that’s what they wanted to say. After all, they have been blogging about being a better blogger/writer for years; in other words, saying “Keep writing” in a thousand different ways.

Wait, one more...

* My trusted editor and mentor, Sherry Lamoreaux, pointed out an obvious shortcoming in the idea of speed as the only metric on which traditional media companies competed. “I disagree, at least as far as print goes. Some newspapers were known for brilliant investigative reporting (see the Pentagon Papers, see Watergate) and some for wonderful writing, or for having great authority (NYT).  The Guardian has it all, still.” She is dead-on, and that gives me a good reason to write another entry...

The news industry is dead. 1/2

The traditional role of the news media, to collect facts and broadcast them as quickly and accurately as possible, is dead. It is old news (though they haven't done a good job reporting it, except for some brave souls); a majority of the people working in the news industry are facing the possibility of becoming either worthless or jobless or both. Who is killing them?

Everybody. Even themselves.

Why? Because as readers, all we need is the one news source—the best—and it is already on the web. When I want news I have HuffingtonPost. When I want anti-news I have The Onion. That's it for me, my news needs are met. Perhaps for you that “one course” is Financial Times, or The Sun, or both, but that's the only one news outlet you really need.

It's not just news. For every topic I am interested in, there is a giant resource on the web that shows me everything, usually for free.

• Conspiracies World affairs: The Economist
• Blogging tips: Problogger
• Technology trends: TechCrunch
• Box office: Box Office Guru
• Cool stuff: Wired
• Oddities: BoingBoing

I know there are other resources. But I don’t care, because the ones I chose satisfy all my needs and more. The hundreds of second-tiers, the almost-as-gooders, don't exist for me.

It is like getting married. We might spend a ridiculous amount of time picking our best possible mate, but after that, as long as the relationship provides net positive results, we don’t consider other temptations.

Sure, websites are not humans. The virtual world has a big difference from the real one: everybody can own—not share—the same best mate. You can have either, or even both of, Brangelina in your hands. And they stay young, without (or with) the thirty kids coming ahead. Do you still need more?

So. If a media outlet (or a website, or a blogger) cannot be "The Best"—which is too far to go for 99.9999 percent of us—what should we do? Here is where the second option, “The Only,” comes in. Continued to the next entry...

Mar 20: P.S. Had a great comment from Tariq West on the "becoming worthless or jobless or both" part in the first paragraph.

"Worthless or jobless or both" is perhaps not a great phrasing in the sense that bloggers and other new-media outlets very much depend on the work of traditional journalists - they may be jobless, but the more they disappear I think the more we'll realize how much they're worth.

He is right, that wasn't an appropriate phrase. I was having the situation of journalism in my home country, Japan, when I wrote this entry and realized what is happening there just doesn't apply to journalism in English-speaking world.

Decades of language barriers have created a haven for the Japanese news industry, which unfortunately has invited a serious deterioration in the quality of the news. Maybe I should write a separate entry.

Guest post @ expat + Harem

Here it is, my first official guest blog post. Although I am credited as the writer, this post really was a collaborative effort with expat+Harem's creator, Anastasia Ashman. Without her guidance and encouragement (+ a top-notch editing) the post wouldn't have made it.

I am supposed to read through the finished article but still cannot; instead I want to crawl my skin and bury my head into dirt (with my butt showing up, obviously on purpose). Gosh, some of the episodes are still raw. Guest-blogging have been a bit hard but altogether exciting experience--until now. I never expected anxiety and doubt, even for a short period of time, to arrive after the posting. During drafting, I was only trying to put the stories out; the only doubt was what episode to delete or add. After drafting, I just waited for time to pass by.

Well, the anxiety comes from sharing my private stories with total strangers, even though I secretly wanted to do so for a long time. Sometimes we need to dig into our memories and share stories that we believe are "done." More often than not they aren't (that's the true reason why we wanted to label them as "done" in the first place). In addition, after they are out in the public area (the web), those stories do not belong to us any more.

If a story is deep and well told, it will start to have a life of its own and inspire people beyond the reach of its original author. Eventually through the audiences' reactions, the author will start to see different point of views and be able to reconstruct his past (and future) in a different way--hopefully in an exciting way.

I hope I will one day be able to reach that level. Right now, I did what I could do now, and all the judgment is up to the readers.

Today's lesson: write first, worry later. You'll be glad you did it.

Expressing yourself in six words

I stumbled on the Six Word Memoir challenge started by Michelle Reynoso, through a LinkedIn group. It's simple — (1) describe (2) your (3) life (4) in (5) six (6) words — but addictive. Here's hers. Bottom to top; over and over. Here's mine. Lived eyes closed. Wrote eyes open. As of March 5th, more than 100 people have left their 'autobiographies.'

 Why are we are so attracted to the idea of micro-autobiography? As one member wrote (in six words) "Six words cannot summarize my life," it is impossible to squash our entire life history into a single sentence. (Well we can, as we all became aware that one time, around 4am, but let's skip that part.)

I liked the idea because it was actually about searching, not summarizing. We all want to find the central theme, the common thread, that runs in our life. Sometimes we catch its glimpse or shadow, but after the initial three-hour empowerment gets milked by our work, life, and fantasies, all that's left is the vague memory that we had our moment of sensation. The core message, or lesson, is gone.

The six-word challenge gives us the perfect tool to retain the message. Six words are long enough to contain important ideas but short enough to shut out unnecessary words (noise). Most important of all, the six-word phrase is easy to remember. It does not vaporize amid the daily chaos. Find it, note it, keep it.

Wanna know how memorable short message could be? A while ago, the CEO of Sun Microsystems tweeted his resignation in haiku. "Financial crisis / Stalled too many customers / CEO no more" I don't (won't) even remember his name, but I surely will remember this line.

What might be your six-word memoir?

P.S. Inspired, I have started a photo haiku series on my Tumblr account (the latest one appears on the sidebar of this blog). The haiku format may turn mundane photos (I have too many of them) into lesson/joke/scandal/whatever. I hope.

How to get over remaking the remake

The planned Spider-man4 was officially axed, together with the original director Sam Raimi and THE Spider-man, Tobey Maguire. They say it was because Sam Raimi, the original director, refused to use a villain that the studio wanted.

Honestly, who cares? If they can put a nerdy scientist wearing a green goblin mask standing on a flying saucer as a super-villain, you can do anything with any material. The audience have long accepted Spider-man's campiness. Besides, it's Sam Raimi--have some respect.

Worst of all, they are going to "reboot" the franchise with cheaper director and casting. It is getting ugly. If we want to know where this ultimately goes, take a look at the history of Friday the 13th series. In a sense, it is scarier than most of its films.

1. Friday the 13th: The mom is the killer.
2. Friday the 13th, Part II-VII: We didn't use her son. Let him kill more. And more. (x 5)
3. Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Used up all ideas? Let him walk Manhattan.
4. Friday the 13th, Part IX: Or go to hell.
5. Friday the 13th, Part X: Or space.
6. Freddy vs. Jason: No, it is not over. Combine him with Freddie Cruger.
7. Friday the 13th: Reboot.
8. Sequel has to be made, right?

What should they do instead? Look up to our hero, Clint Eastwood. List his last several movies and it becomes clear. He keeps pushing the envelope, embarking on new challenge. There is no sequel, no reboot, not even a remake. And take a look at their background; none of the movies plays the game safely.

• Mystic river: Three childhood friends grow up and kill each other. And it is not a horror movie.
• Million dollar baby: The coach helps his protegee commit suicide.
• Flags of our fathers: De-glorifies one of the war legends. Hello, Spielberg?
• Letters from Iwo Jima: A Japanese-spoken film shot with Japanese crew and actors.
• Changeling: Hmm...this one plays it safe. It's fine once in a while.
• Gran Torino: Semi-pro Asian actors + a story of dying generation + a dying community (Detroit).
• Invictus: Based in South Africa (where is it?) + rugby, a sports unknown in the American continent.

Everybody should look up to Clint Eastwood, and make films like he does. This guy is still the man, at the age of 80.

Clash of alter ego: Google and China

Slightly old news: Google joined the online storage business: all existing companies are screwed. Google chose to flatten the industry landscape than negotiate with current landowners. They broke the existing environment in the name of a better society.

Sounds familiar? Like, with what the Chinese government does? The difference is that what Google does is generally accepted by users, including yours truly. What the Chinese government does...is...wait a second, accepted by many people, especially younger generations, too. They are curiously alike.

Switching to another topic, Google is planning to (almost) pull out of China after being forced to compromise and nevertheless being cyber-raped. Rumor has it that the decision was made by one of its cofounders. Clearly there should be an illogical reason for such un-marketwise decision. I suspect Sergey Brin is trying to crush his alter-ego.

In the past, Google had claimed triumph in many of the industry it has entered into.

• Email: Gmail finally turned Hotmail into what it truly deserves: a joke.
• Video: Well, if it cannot be beaten, buy it out...
• Office software: Google office has a long way to replace MS Office, but at least for uploading on the web and sharing with others, Google Doc is becoming the default tool.
• Mobile phone: Android phones nailed MS Mobile's coffin. iPhone is still far away, but at least Google is competing with it, which nobody ever did before.

Now here is China. They cannot be bought, cannot be beaten. Just like Google itself. To add salt in the wound (or to make China even more Google-like), a copycat is claiming the top market share, in Google's eyes.

This battle is personal, at least for Sergey Brin. By witnessing the series of event, we are also realizing who he is as a human being, not as a genius programmer.

Is Designing Great Products a Matter of Personal Taste?

Here are three companies/products earning great reputation on their innovative design and intuitive user experience. With an episode of the leading guy's personal trait.

Google Nexus one: Andy Rubin

And he wouldn’t compromise, even after it was clear Google would miss their original deadline of shipping the Nexus One in time for the 2009 holiday rush. “Rubin kept saying it has to be thinner,” mumbled one tired team member to me after the event, “so we made it thinner.”

Everything from Apple: Steve Jobs

To Jobs, the world is an epiphenomenon, a side effect of the existence of Steve. Or rather, it is a pyramid with Jobs at the top, a few bright people just beneath him, and then the rest of us — the “bozos”. The customer bozo is not, to him, always right. In the early days it was said the Apple marketing department consisted of Jobs looking in his mirror and asking himself what he wanted

Games from Nintendo: Shigeru Miyamoto

Miyamoto has also been known to have Nintendo implement delays "to make a game [...] of the high quality standards that Nintendo is known for," at times even scrapping the entire development of games.

Is great design (not good design) a matter of personal taste that cannot be quantified or qualified? Otherwise we cannot explain the fact that dictators keep churning out great products. If it is true, maybe all design philosophies, especially those for wannabe world-changers, can be summarized in one sentence: find a genius asshole and let him do whatever he wants.

Similar logic-bending stories are heard about other so-called genius. The son of the world's most famous investor, George Soros, tells us through Malcolm Gladwell how to decipher his father's trading secrets.

My father will sit down and give you theories to explain why he does this or that. But I remember seeing it as a kid and thinking, Jesus Christ, at least half of this is bullshit. I mean, you know the reason he changes his position on the market or whatever is because his back starts killing him. It has nothing to do with reason. He literally goes into a spasm, and it's this early warning sign.

After all, as Stephen King says, it might be a "telepathy" stuff.

We are writers, and we never ask one another where we get our ideas; we know we don't know.

4 Myths about Japanese Culture

Despite enjoying Japanese culture to deeper extent than other countries, Taiwan still has its shares of myth held against Japan. Part of the reason is in Japan itself: we are the world's sloppiest nation when it comes to explaining who we are, what we do, and why we are the way we are. Here are some of the myths I have heard over the years. Let's see if they are true.

Japanese are horny.

False. I know, I know. Where did the word Bukkake (be careful, Wikipedia has gone NSFW) come from? It means "splash over your face" in Japanese. Who invented the tentacle rape (don't ask me)? If you go to any of the 100 adult entertainment shops in Taipei, 95% of the 10,000 DVDs sold are from Japan. But hey, lies, damn lies and statistics are on our side. The Japanese enjoy the least amount of sex, people, according to Durex.

Then what explains the amount of Japanese adult entertainment? What's true is that we (1) tend to over-divide a category and (2) almost all industry in Japan is saturated. Over-detailed and over-competitive; a deadly combination of two tendencies have driven the Japanese adult entertainment to an extreme, and as a consequence, fueled underground economies all over the world.

Japanese companies are not a great place to work.

True (from what I still hear from my friends). Each time I have high hopes for Japanese companies getting open to the world, a news like this pops up. The road is long...

(Taken from the merger of Lehman Brothers and Nomura, a Japanese investment heavyweight)

Lehman bankers encountered a different work culture at Nomura. One team of Nomura traders, for instance, sang a company song at morning meetings.

Asked about the training sessions for new hires, a Nomura spokeswoman said that both sexes were taught business etiquette, and the men and women were trained separately for logistical reasons.

Some Nomura managers interpreted strictly the company's dress code for women. They told women joining from Lehman to remove highlights from their hair, to wear sleeves no shorter than midbicep and to avoid brightly colored clothing, according to several people who joined from Lehman. Several women were sent home from the trading floor for dressing "inappropriately," these people say.

Japanese love eating whales.

False for Japanese in general, true for some old people. Whale was once considered valuable source of protein, and because we have enough meat now, whaling is a dying profession, reserved for old generations who eat for nostalgia. Full disclosure: I ate whale meat a couple of times with my granddad, and it does not taste good as meat (good for us after all).

A documentary called The Cove sheds some light on Japanese fisherman slaughtering dolphins. The fact: all Japanese on my network, including myself, learned we eat dolphins thanks to that film.

Ninja still exists.

False (I'm sorry). I mean, I thought that was a universally accepted truth until I talked with a Taiwanese acquaintance several months ago who told me "Of course they still exist, don't they?" It's all because of Kosugi Sho and his Carolco Ninja series. Damn you. In one of those films, titled Nine Deaths of the Ninja, his character is called Spike Shinobi (=spikey Ninja in Japanese). It is beyond salvation.

I saw a movie Ninja for the first time when I was 6, in Enter the Ninja, where Franco Nero plays a modern Ninja in white outfit. (If you wear a bright white costume in a bright sunny day, doesn't it discredit the whole point of being a secret agent?) Below is the trailer, but you can see the whole film on YouTube. Enjoy when you have nothing to do in a Sunday morning.

How to revive Hollywood movie: sampling

What does Hollywood offer these days? Everything looks tired.

1. Remake a known property. (Spider-man)
2. Create its sequel. (Spider-man2)
3. Stretch the series as much as possible. (Spider-man3)
4. When the production gets too costly/demanding, suck them and reboot. (Spider-man4)
5. Then create its sequel. (Halloween (Reboot), part 2)
6. Maybe a prequel. (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
7. Or two. (Wolverine2)
8. Go back to number 1.

Things are moving in full circle, which is always a good sign in the traditional movie context, but this time the whole thing is resembling Ouroboros. That doesn't end well. The circle gets smaller and soon there will be no more meat to cannibalize (diagram taken from Wikipedia).

Since the current Hollywood is run by banks and overseas investors, not the movie industry itself, there is little chance to do something original. But I think there is a way to be creative AND to appease the investors: mashup.

The idea is to integrate two well-known concept into one and start something anew. It's not the "VS" series as in Alien vs. Predator. It's rather integration of the two. Here are three such ideas.

• Zombie + Vampire = Zompire. A vampire sucks blood from a zombie. Or a zombie eats a vampire. The rule is off the limit.
• Shaolin Temple + Ninja = Shaolinja. Calm as a monk, Strong as a Shaolin fighter, Fast as a Ninja. The problem here is that the real Shaolin temple won't agree their "properties" get associated with Japanese Ninja. Come on, aren't you supposed to be enlightened? Also, using lawyers as weapon is tired.
• James Bond + Jason Bourne = Jameson Bondourne. This one has a small problem in securing rights, so it should be considered as the big gun. The story will be of a double-spy moonlighting as a high-class escort for mature women (and men too: he prefers duality over anything). His killer pitch (when he leaves his client): What's your name? Bondourne. Jameson Bondourne.

Investors will be happy because there are not only one but TWO known properties. The creative team will be happy because they can write their own rule. Audience will be (hopefully) happy wondering what the fuss is about.

It's a win-win scenario. How come no one hasn't executed it yet?

My 5 rules for posting regularly

The road to hell is paved with blogging about blogging but what the hell, I'll do it. I post a blog entry every other day (at least after January 1st, 2010), which is fairly constant and frequent. Here is how I do it.

1. Devote the best hours of a day to blogging

My brain works best right after I wake up in the morning. So that is when I face my laptop. I spend about two hours for researching and writing before I head to work. Sadly, many days the "research" part takes too much time because it is easier and writing is hard.

To recoup some of the lost opportunities, I try not to indulge in stuff that are not related to blogging (such as watching a re-run of Racing with the Moon with young Sean Penn and Nicholas Cage: I watched bits of it in no less than 4 times but still haven't gotten the whole story)

2. Do it every day

Many people say brain is like muscle: in order to be better, you need to use it every day. Making writing a habit is the best strategy. I find it also helpful for keeping me concentrated on my work during the day. If I do not spend writing time in the morning, I feel the urge to compensate for it during office hours. Needless to say, it's risky.

3. Take notes and put them in a single location

Jjot.com is my favorite online note-taking tool. When away from a computer, I send an email to myself, or if the idea is good enough to stand on its feet, tweet it. Twitter is a wonderful tool not only for broadcasting micro-messages and interacting with people but also for keeping online memo.

Having all memos in a single location matters, because the most interesting aspect of writing (or blogging) is forming a new combination/idea from old, seemingly unrelated materials. More about this topic can be read here.

4. Locate a large chunk of time once a week to write in bulk

On Sunday morning I allocate several hours to assembling all the drafts I wrote during the week (yes they do not have to be published immediately) for the upcoming week. During this stage, I complete unfinished drafts and correct goofy errors. Also, taking another look at the initial draft often generates another idea or leads to previously unnoticed mistakes.

Having more than a couple of hours is important because for some reason my brain needs idling time when it comes to writing, even when it is most active.... The two-hour writing hour during weekdays usually gets shortened to a one hour of concentration, which is not long enough for completing an entry.

5. Schedule posts beforehand

Typepad, my blog service, allows scheduling. I make sure there are always at least two stocks of unpublished posts. That way, there is no pressure in rushing and posting something I would later regret or starts the day with a bad mood. The workplace pressure is already giving us enough headaches. We should be spared from that at least while writing for the sake of writing.

Which is dying: job category or people inside

A while ago, Marian Schembari shared a good reading about people committing suicide taking enormous amount of risk by jumping into so-called dying industries (she is mentioned on page 3, alive and well).

Well, why? Are they rich enough to indulge themselves? No - almost everybody introduced in the article made their choice without preparing a safety cushion (some even ditched it). They are, as the article says, just "incredibly enthusiastic about their career choice."

I believe those courageous people who listen to their inner voice will transform not only themselves but also those professions from outside. How come? Because they (1) already have passion and (2) are flexible enough to change their process when things do not work as intended.

Marian herself ditched traditional job-hunting arsenals such as resume and cover letter; instead, she focused on networking using social media tools (it apparently worked very well). An ex-social media expert trying to become an English professor is thinking of landing a job as a high school English teacher, even going back to social media if thing does not go the ideal way.

The writer of the article, Michelle Goodman, also recommends not following the beaten path.

Picture an office building with a row of four to six doors at the entrance. Most people who want into that building will bottleneck around one doorway instead of taking the time to open one of the unused doors themselves. (Admit it; you know you've seen this real-life scene a thousand times.)

Like lemmings, we're conditioned to do what everyone who's gone before us has done. My advice to those entering an already saturated profession: don't be the career lemming.

The ironic fact is that probably the majority of people already in the saturated profession are career lemming without knowing so. Some job categories are slowly dying not because we don't need them anymore but because people working there cannot adapt well to the new reality.

We still still read news and learn English, after all. Someone will take care of them, and I hope them to be "outsiders."