The new, new thing in Japan: write a novel on a mobile phone

You think BlackBerry users are weird because because they don't mind hammering out email messages with their thumbs? Well, in Japan a new generation of authors are writing entire novels on their mobile phones. This article relates that "half of Japan's top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed ... on the tiny handset of a mobile phone."

The writing style is characterized by "clipped one-liners, emoticons and spaces (used to show that a character is thinking), all of which can be read easily on a mobile phone interface."

One such novel is Moshimo Kimiga, written by a nursery school teacher on her mobile phone and originally distributed in installments to mobile phone readers. Now that it is available in hard cover, it has sold 420,000 copies since January.

I still can't decide if this is a wonderful example of making an art previously practiced by a relative few available to the many, or if it's just depressingly weird. You tell me!

Finally, my phone knows where I am

Google announced a new version of Google Maps for mobile phones almost a week ago. It uses cell tower location data to determine approximately where you are, without needing GPS. Now I know you're thinking, "triangulation!" but Google doesn't say that word anywhere.

This was just too cool to pass up so I've been trying valiantly for the last week to get it running on my BlackBerry Pearl 8100 (on the Rogers network in the Vancouver area). I am happy to report that after multiple permutations of installing, uninstalling, power cycling and battery pulling ... it works! It's in beta (what a surprise), and surely Google will figure out how to make it install more reliably soon.

What do I mean by "it works"? Instantly after firing up the application it showed my estimated location with a blue flashing dot and indicated that it was accurate to about 1700m. In fact, it was much closer, about five blocks. And that's indoors where GPS wouldn't work anyway.

For those us used to having GPS locate us to within the correct side of the street, not five blocks away, this may seem like it's not going to be good enough. But if you are as directionally challenged as I am, you'll take what you can get. And Google claims that it will get more accurate as it used more. (How the heck does that work??)

You can find out all about it here. It would be a good idea to check first if your phone is supported.

No more shaky pans?

Isn't it annoying how difficult it is to get a smooth pan or tilt even when using a tripod? You go to all that work to get a rock steady picture, but then discover it is almost impossible to avoid shaking the camera a little when your hands grab the handle to start the movement. A better tripod head might help, but the idea of a motorized device to do the camera moves is pretty attractive.

This sounds like a problem that money could solve and indeed there are many options if you are willing to spend $5,000 and up. But if that's not in your budget, you might want to take a look at the Bescor MP-101 ($120 at B&H). It is a battery-operated (an AC adapter is optional) motorized pan head. I couldn't find reviews or user comments about this unit anywhere, so I took a chance and bought one.

Installation and use is simple. You attach it to your tripod head and then attach the camera to it. The remote is simple and easy to operate. You set the pan speed with a slide control and then press the arrow in the direction you want to move the camera. It will also tilt, at a fixed speed.

There is also has an automatic mode which will continuously pan the camera back and forth between the angles of your choice. Maybe this is good for a security application? I can't think of any time I would use it.

I've made a few sample videos with my Canon XH A1 to show you the results. The first shows a pan of a forest scene at the fastest speed, using a wide angle. Frankly it doesn't look very good but that's not the fault of the Bescor. For reasons I don't fully understand (but which are discussed here), panning doesn't look good with this setup. At the slow speed though it looks great. Fortunately the tilt speed is slow, so that works. Unless you are zoomed in which case it's too fast. Sigh.

Pros

• Inexpensive
• Quiet
• Pretty smooth
• Easy to use
• Good range of travel

Cons

• Motion starts and ends abruptly
• Slowest speed is still too fast (especially on zoom)
• Occasional hesitations during travel
• Some minor glitching when reversing directions
• The wire to the remote control is not very long (but an extension is available)

Summary

If you need an inexpensive motorized pan and tilt head, the Bescor MP-101 could be the one for you. It does a good job within its limitations. For my purposes, the jury is still out as to whether it will be useful. Look at the sample video (about 50MB) and judge for yourself. I bought mine at B&H Photo/Video.

Cherry blossoms in HD

This picture is one frame from an HD movie taken with the XH A1 in 1080i mode. Click on the image to get the full size view. It looks better than most of the images I take with my still camera.

Should I pay 4x for HDV tapes?

Crikey. I've just learned that although you can use regular mini-DV tapes in an HDV camcorder, maybe you shouldn't. According to wikipedia (today, at least): "Because HDV uses the same tape form factor as DV, users should be able to use any high quality MiniDV tape in their HDV camcorder. However, because HDV has a lower tolerance for drop-outs because of its long-GOP compression, many HDV users purchase either 'master' quality Mini-DV tapes or specially formulated HDV tapes."

But tapes advertised as being for HDV cost four times as much as regular mini-DV tapes. Surely this is a rip-off, comparable to the hugely-inflated prices of Monster cables? Please someone tell me that regular tapes from a reputable manufacturer are good enough!

Canon XH A1: Big and Wonderful

As promised in my last post, I bought a Canon XH A1 from Beach Camera. As usual with Beach, the transaction was smooth and the shipping was quick.

I am on a journey that I suspect is common to a lot of semi-serious videographers out there: the first step from a decent SD camcorder to HD. I have had great service from a pair of Panasonic PV-GS400 camcorders for the last couple of years. The PV-GS400 was hands down the best camcorder in its price class and it is very sad that Panasonic no longer produces it and instead has chosen to dumb down its product line.

But it was time to think about HD anyway. The choice was to take a small step up to a consumer HD camera or take a big step up into a prosumer camera. I had gotten used to the nice manual controls on the PV-GS400 and didn't want to give any of that up. So I made the big step forward. The XH A1 is about (gulp) three times the price of the PV-GS400.

The first thing you notice is that the XH A1 is a lot bigger than the PV-GS400. (See picture.) But it is much sexier looking. I mean, come on, look at it!

It's heavier too, weighing in at about 5-1/2 pounds. The little pipsqueak Panasonic is only 1-1/2 pounds. I thought the weight would kill me, but I walked around for about an hour with it, taking pictures of random things, and it wasn't too bad.

The second thing you notice is the quality of the pictures. Oh my! This baby is worth every penny. More on the picture quality in my next post.

Canon offers $250 rebate on XH A1

I've been ready to make the switch to an HD camcorder for a little while now. But it's been hard to choose. The consumer camcorders are amazing for the price, but too dumbed down for the serious hobbyist. And the professional ones are ferociously expensive unless you're, well, a professional.

Based on the not-quite-astronomical price and several rave reviews, I have settled on getting the Canon XH A1. Today I started scouring the Web for the best price from a reputable dealer. (What is it about camera equipment that attracts so many vendors with shady selling practices?) I soon tumbled on to the fact that Canon is offering a $250 rebate for cameras purchased between March and June of 2007. Hooray!

No one legit seems to be offering a better price than Beach Camera, and I've had good experiences with them in the past, so that's where I'll go to buy it.

GPS Text-to-Speech Feature a Must-Have

I have an absolutely atrocious sense of direction, but I have been fortunate enough to be born in an era when the miracle cure is available: GPS.

I am on my second GPS receiver now and have used several in friends' cars and rentals. My latest is a Garmin C340. It's a wonderful little unit that I like the best of any I've used. But it has one feature that really wins the prize for me: text-to-speech.

This feature means that actual names are used in the driving directions instead of generic descriptions. For example, instead of, "In 200 feet, turn right," you are told, "In 200 feet, turn right onto Alameda Parkway." Makes a huge difference.

Now you might expect it would be difficult for a little guy like the C340 to do this perfectly, and you'd be right. It's actually amazingly good, but there are the odd amusing glitches. Examples:

• "Marine Dr" -> "Marine Doctor"
  
• "Granville St S" -> "Granville Saint South"
• And my favorite... Just for laughs I changed the voice to Australian. I was surprised when it then interpreted "WA 451", which should have been "Washington 451", as "Western Australia 451". Switch back to the American voice and it comes out correctly. Ha ha.

The C340 is very easy to use and small enough to throw into your carry-on luggage when you're traveling and can't count on the rental car having GPS. The display is not bright enough on sunny days and the voice could be a little louder, but other than that everything works great. Highly recommended for the directionally-challenged.

Canadians: The usual retail outlets don't carry this model, preferring the C330 for some reason. But the C330 doesn't have text-to-speech. Don't buy it! Order the C340 over the Web or buy it retail in the US.

Note: I have no affiliation with Garmin and I'm not smart enough to figure out how to get affiliate $ from anyone.

Slides from Moose Camp available

My talk, "Great Podcast Sound for Cheap," at Moose Camp went well. Lots of questions and not nearly enough time to answer them all! I've posted the slides here and hope to expand on the topics covered there in subsequent blog posts.

See You at Moose Camp

I'm going to be at Moose Camp this Friday (February 10) where I will give a talk on how to achieve great audio quality in podcasts. I'll share everything I've learned from my work with IT Conversations and will demonstrate several tools that we have developed to make it all painless, technically and financially.

The 28 Hour Day

I have just learned of this interesting variation on the 25 Hour Day concept I advocate here. (And which gives this blog its name.)

The author gets many of the benefits right, but the 25 hour day is more biologically oriented.

read more | digg story

Smoke from Burns Bog fire

Sun obscured by smoke from the Burns Bog fire. Burns Bog is a large ecologically sensitive area. True to its name, it is also highly flammable and thanks to a considerable depth of peat moss, a fire that gets started there can burn for weeks. There has been a huge conflagration there in the last few days. We are just a few miles from it, but fortunately the winds have mostly kept the smoke away. On this morning though, last Tuesday, the smoke settled in during the still morning air, leading to this view of the sunrise. Beautiful, sad and distrubing at the same time.

Adventures in Podcasting

I am a volunteer audio engineer for IT Conversations, a popular podcasting site that (among other things) makes available presentations from conferences like the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, BlogHer, Pop!Tech and MeshForum.

What does it mean to be an audio engineer? It means that I get the original audio recordings, edit them in various ways, add all the audio chrome at the beginning and end, and encode them to podcast and archival formats. It's all good fun and a weirdly relaxing hobby.

But I'm also a software guy and once I'd done a few shows I couldn't resist the urge to create some tools to make the whole process easier and to achieve consistently high quality. I'll be writing about them in subsequent entries in this blog. I hope to help the whole podcasting community by making these tools available for free. You can find them on my Web site which is a PostNuke horror story at the moment. But that is a discussion for another day.

One of the great things about working with Doug Kaye (the founder of IT Conversations) is his high standards for the shows. Both the audio quality and the substance of the presentations are top-notch, which is why ITC is so highly regarded. Editing each show is a unique adventure. My personal goal is to make the final podcast a better experience than being there live. Well, at least in the sense that the coughs and sneezes are gone, the dead air while waiting for PowerPoint to come to life is trimmed, and the questions can actually be heard. When you start on a show you never know what you are going to run into. I'll be sharing some of these stories too.

It is intriguing to watch the podcast phenomonen develop. I live in Vancouver and walk by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on the way to work every day. They are on strike now and as I see the picketers I can't help but think that whatever battle they are fighting now, it's going to be a completely different discussion soon. I used to be a big fan of the CBC. Now I walk past their big grey building with my MP3 player, the size of a pack of gum, plugged in and listening not to the radio but to a collection of really interesting podcasts hand-picked by me to suit my tastes and interests. I haven't tuned in to the CBC for ... months?

Firefox's killer feature

I work on a few different computers and have dabbled with using Firefox as my browser on some of them. I have now discovered the killer feature that has made me a total convert.

No, it's not tabbed browsing, although that is really quite good. (If only it were 100% implemented instead of 90%!) Nor is it popup blocking, which is also very good, but just as well implemented by the Google toolbar. Nor is it all the other things the Mozilla folks justifiably blow their own horn about.

For me the killer feature is that when I press Ctrl-+ the text on the Web page gets bigger. When I press Ctrl-- it gets smaller again. What is great about this is the text changes size in a useful way, not like the lame text size menu item in IE. The keyboard shortcuts are so fast and convenient (and mnemonic) that I find I use this feature all the time.

This feature is just great for my own middle-aged eyes. I predict it will cause a huge switchover of baby boomers to Firefox. I'm going to install it on my mother's computer too, next time I visit.

Matcha: placebo or miracle drug?

I miss out on a lot of good stuff because I am skeptical enough that placebo effects are not very effective in my case.

For example, the Vancouver Sun recently devoted a lot of column inches to matcha tea. It is filled with testimonials to matcha's energizing powers, such as "With coffee, I really felt the ups and downs of caffeine. With matcha, the energy lasts and I don't crash. The difference is huge."

My wife and I have tried it a few times now and I'm here to report that ... I don't know whether it has an effect or not. The tea itself has a strong flavor so if you buy a prepared cup at Blenz or a tea house, it is likely to be dolled up with lots of milk and sugar. The intense green color is a conversation starter though.

As for its mystical powers, that cause it to "treated just like gold" in Japan, well, I think it helps if you believe in it. I won't say any more so I don't spoil the experience for you.

The stuff is pretty expensive though so maybe that helps.

A modest proposal: 25 hour day

If I could convince you that I know how to achieve the following benefits, you would think I'm a genius, right?

1. Eliminate jet lag
2. Extend people's lives
3. Improve people's health
4. Remove a major impediment to global commerce
5. Complete the metric system
6. Eliminate all problems associated with leap years

Here's the deal. When they put volunteers (?) in caves with no timekeeping devices or time cues of any kind and let their bodies find their natural circadian rhythms, people naturally settle into a 25 hour pattern, instead of 24.

I propose that we take advantage of this observation, revamp our system of time and do it right. Ever since the invention of the light bulb and shift work, the connection between people's sleep-wake cycles and the hours of day and night have been completely disrupted anyway, so it should be no big deal.The precise idea is this. We replace the current day with a New Day (ND) which is about 25.05 hours long. This length is chosen so that there are exactly 350 ND in a year. Since the ND is independent of the daily movement of the sun, there is no need for time zones: the entire earth uses the same time.

Let's think about what this means. No matter where you travel, when you arrive the time is the same as the time in the place you left. Hence benefit #1. With the ND, we all get an extra hour in our day, effectively extending our lives by about 4%. That's benefit #2. The ND corresponds to our natural biological rhythms, hence benefit #3. Benefit #4 results from the elimination of time zones and because everyone's work day is the same. No more scheduling phone calls at odd hours to talk to your remote office!

The adoption of the ND gives us the perfect opportunity to change the definition of an hour to something more metric, so perhaps we have 10 New Hours in a ND, 100 New Minutes in a New Hour, etc. It just makes sense. Time is the one area where the metric system has not had much impact; let's take care of that little problem right now. (Benefit #5)

Since there are now exactly 350 ND in a year, we can have 10 New Months of 35 ND each. Each New Month could have five New Weeks consisting of (in a nod to tradition) 7 ND.

Benefit #6: there is no need for leap years anymore because the ND is defined in terms of how long it takes the earth to go around the sun. Think of the savings in simplified accounting, programming and calendar production! (The same calendar works year after year!)

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most profound. I urge you to join with me to advocate for this elegant solution to many age-old problems. Let us adopt the 25 hour day as soon as possible. A New Day is coming!

Update: I have recently learned of an alternative proposal in the same spirit: The 28 Hour Day which was featured in digg.

Windows start up programs

Ever wish you could easily get a list of all the programs that Windows runs on start up? There is a wonderful free utility that does this called autoruns from Sysinternals who have several other wonderful free utilities. Highly recommended for technical types who want to know why Windows takes so long to boot and why does that particular icon show up in the system tray and how do you get rid of stupid programs you didn't want in the first place and ... You get the idea.

Enoteca

There is a restaurant near my office called "Enoteca". There is something about that name that has bothered me ever since I first noticed it. Then it finally dawned on me: Enoteca, which is a general name for an Italian wine bar, is the name of a toxic liquid when spelled backward.

Glad I figured that out...

In the blink of an eye

I make video productions as a hobby. Student productions of plays, amateur musicals, that kind of thing. Just amateur stuff, but I use decent DV camcorders and high-quality audio recording.

Thanks to some software my son wrote, I can edit video from multiple sources into a reasonable looking production with multiple camera angles, cuts, dissolves, fades, etc. It's a huge step up in quality from the usual single camera point-and-forget affair.

So now that I am a video editor, it has got me thinking. Why do cuts in movies work at all? Why doesn't a sudden change of point of view and/or distance look so strange to the human visual perception system that it is jarring and incomprehensible?

In his thoughtful book, In the Blink of an Eye, film editor Walter Murch suggests a plausible answer. Humans perceive the world discontinuously as a matter of course. It is well known that when you read, your eyes don't smoothly sweep across the lines of text. Instead, they move to a specific location, pause, you absorb what you see, then they jerk to the next location and pause, and so on. Murch goes on to assert that blinking is overrated as a mechanism to absorb the eyeballs. Instead, a blink provides a boundary between different points of view as your eyes bounce around to take in your visual surroundings.

It is not hard to see an analogy with the way those of us in the technology business see the world. We pause briefly to consider an idea, then in the blink of an eye we context switch to a completely different (and possibly even contradictory) point of view. The brain is adept at assembling these fragments into some sort of coherent whole. It feels natural rather than weird. The hard thing to explain is how people can focus on a chess or Go board for a couple of hours!

Bandwidth, storage make advances over medieval technologies!

Anyone who uses the internet (Wired magazine now advocates that we use a lower-case 'i') and has any sense of history feels awed by the advance in human communication it represents.

Here's where it fits in an exponentially accelerating rate of key milestones:

• 50,000 years ago: origins of human language
• 5,000 years ago: emergence of written language
• 500 years ago: movable type enables the printing press in Europe
• 50 years ago: ARPA initiates projects that evolve into the internet
• 5 years ago (-ish): the W3C issues the XML specification as a recommendation

OK, that last milestone reflects my personal prejudice that XML is as significant an enabling technology for electronic written communication as movable type was for the printing press. More on that another day.

Another perspective on how far we've come is the increase of bandwidth of communication in the last 100 years or so. By 1928, telegraph transmission rates reached 2,800 characters per minute or 0.4 kbps. It was still faster to fly a copy of the New York Times across the Atlantic, a transmission rate that I estimate to be about 1.4 kpbs. Today of course electronic transmission of information is faster than any alternative by orders of magnitude.

In his fascinating survey of the history of letters, Alpha Beta, John Man presents the following data: In AD 500 the world was using perhaps 500 tons of paper for books. At the turn of the millenium that number had risen to 130 million tons. "Per person, we consume almost 20,000 times as much reading material as our medieval ancestors." Most of this material disappears within a day or a year.

But in electronic form, much more information can be stored indefinitely. This is only of value if you can find the information again, otherwise you have the proverbial "write-only database". Google seems pretty much on track to solve that problem and become the portal to all human knowledge. At least if full-text search and page rank are sufficient to find what we are looking for.

The next great challenge is to get information out of people's desktops and into the public realm. Did I mention XML above? More on this later...