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The Mac Geek's Journal - Archives Archived November 28, 2002
2003_11_10
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11/28/2002 - The Mac Geek's Reading Update First of all, I'd like
to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I'm doing quite a bit of Japanese anime reading. I'm currently reading Love Hina, and I have to admit the subject matter somewhat irritates me. As I read and watch Japanese anime more and more, I'm starting to realize how important it is to the Japanese and their families to be very successful academically. When you graduate from high school, your entire life depends on getting into the right school. In the U.S., even if you end up going to a community college, life is fine and dandy. However, if you do the same thing in Japan, you and your family name are pretty much put to shame. The process of getting into a highly established university in Japan is similar to that of the U.S. In Japan, you need to take a series of entrance exams that places you into a certain percentile. The college or university accepts or denies your application based on your exam results. It's both similar and different to that of the SAT in the U.S. In the U.S., if your SAT scores are not high enough to get into a highly established school, Stanford University for example, you could do many things. For one, you could go to a school that will accept you, work your butt off improving your grades, then maybe sometime in the future you'll get accepted to Stanford. And, your family and friends will still love you, and girls will still go out with you. The reason why I also say the SATs are different than the Japanese entrance exams is that the SAT is not a pass/fail system. It's just scores. As a result, you can still get into a very good school even if your SAT score is, for example, less than 800 accumulated. |
In Japan, you're pretty much
forced to be successful by your family and peers, and you will suffer the rest
of your life otherwise. Japanese anime uses this as the foundation for many of
its stories. Anime fans like reading stories about men who overcome adversity
and is a changed person as a result.
--- The Mac Geek |
| In Japan, it's much tougher.
If you fail the college entrance exams, you would then need to attend a cram
school. And, all you do is study, take mock exams, study, and take more mock
exams. All the work you do at the cram school does not count as college
credits. At this stage, the Japanese call this type of student a ronin,
which is simply a student that did not score high enough in the entrance
exams. At the end of each year as a ronin, you again take the entrance exam.
If you fail again, you go back to being a ronin for another year. I doubt that
the Japanese treat a ronin like trash, however in Japanese anime, a ronin is
basically a loser. Girls will not speak to you, and your family's name is put
through the ringer. 2nd or even 3rd year ronins are projected as sports jocks
with beer bellies who party everyday.
Love Hina is an anti-ronin story, bar none. It's basically about a 19-year old boy named Keitaro Urashima who's clumsy as hell if you ask me. At the start of the series, he's a second-year ronin who is kicked out of his family's home, forcing him to find shelter someplace else. His aunt owns a hotel in the hot spring village, and gave him permission to stay there while he attends cram school. Without his prior knowledge, his aunt takes off for a somewhat permanent vacation, and she therefore turns the hotel into an all-girl dormitory called Hinata House. Because Keitaro has no other place to go, he ends up staying at the house. All the girls there treat him like trash! Just at the point where he is kicked out of Hinata House, Keitaro receives a letter from his aunt, announcing she has given him the rights to the complex. So, now he's not only a ronin, but he's also a landlord. As a westerner, I would've picked up my things and hauled my butt to the cheapest motel I could find because I wouldn't put up with the abuse by those girls, no matter how cute Naru or Motoko is. No matter how much of an idiot you are, people should not put you down. However, in Japanese anime, this is perfectly acceptable behavior. The protagonist accepts the abuse because it forces him to try harder, which I think is the big difference between the Japanese and the U.S. In the U.S., it's up to you whether or not you're successful, and everyone will put up with you no matter what. In Japan, you're pretty much forced to be successful by your family and peers, and you will suffer the rest of your life otherwise. Japanese anime uses this as the foundation for many of its stories. Anime fans like reading stories about men who overcome adversity and is a changed person as a result. In the U.S., instead of this type of storyline, we celebrate stupidity, and many times we encourage them to stay that way. There's quite a bit of evidence to this: The Simpsons, Beavis & Butthead, The Osbournes, Anna Nicole Smith, the entire E! Channel... Need I say more???? Well, enough of that... Other things I'm reading include Video Girl Ai (I'm up to Volume 7), just finished watching Hand Maid May DVD series, and will continue to read I's after I finish both Love Hina and Video Girl Ai. |
 A sample screenshot of the GS/OS 6.0.1 Finder in action, running under KEGS. |
11/24/2002 - KEGS v0.71 for Mac
OS X and Win32 is Released KEGS
is an Apple IIgs emulator that runs on several of today's popular operating
systems, including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, UNIX, and Linux. The emulation is quite impressive. I'm currently using Bernie to the Rescue running under Mac OS 9.2.2 within Mac OS X 10.2, so KEGS is really the first Cocoa version of an Apple IIgs emulator Cocoa is a programming process, which basically means the code is strictly for Mac OS X. Complete instructions on how to extract the ROMs out of your existing Apple IIgs and transfer the GS/OS are covered at their main web site. If you do not have an Apple IIgs to extract the ROMs from, please DO NOT ask me for them. Apple IIgs's are dirt cheap, so spend the $10 and find one! |
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11/21/2002 - Apple Store to
Open in Honolulu For the last several days, it was basically a rumor
with many credible pieces of information floating around. Today, it's pretty
much reality, excluding a formal announcement by Apple Computer. According to
the Honolulu
Star-Bulletin, Apple is going to open Hawaii's first Apple Store, more
likely in the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu. For those of you who are not familiar with Hawaii... Ala Moana Center, when it was opened in the late 1950's, was the world's largest shopping mall. This was way before those humongous malls you see in the mainland U.S. Ala Moana Center is a popular mall for people visiting Hawaii. It's well known for being a very popular stop for international visitors from Europe and Asia. And, market traffic-wise, it's right up there with New York City. Many of the mainland-based stores in the Ala Moana/Waikiki area are the most profitable in the world, including CHANEL Boutique and McDonald's. So there's some serious money rolling around Honolulu! And imagine Apple being right in the middle of it! This is quite exciting!!!! I'll report more information as I receive it. |
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 A photocopy of the original Apple-1 Operation Manual cover. Notice the logo... This was the first official Apple logo before they replaced it with the rainbow Apple logo in 1977. |
11/15/2002 - Apple 1 Gallery is
now on-line
On July 27, 1976, Charles and Edythe Ricketts purchased one of the 200 Apple-1
computers made. It was actually picked up from Steve Jobs' garage in Los Altos. In the gallery, you'll find photos of the Apple-1 that was purchased that day, placed in a custom made case, along with a keyboard purchased from an electronics store. Also in the gallery are photocopies of the two cancelled checks used to purchase the Apple-1 and additional software services from Apple Computer. The photos of the Apple-1 are reportedly taken in June 1999. A Wired Magazine article was written at that time, talking about this very unit being auctioned off at a computer show. The information in this article matches the data I have, so I'm confident everything is authentic. Other items I've placed in the Museum section include a write-up on the TrackSTAR PLUS, an Apple II emulation card designed for the IBM PC. Playing around with this card is quite amazing! Much better than any software emulation I've ever used. |
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11/09/2002 - Richie Rich, No. 1 Posted On-Line
I've finally got around to posting my comic book on-line. I originally purchased this very comic book in 1986. Well, actually, my mom purchased it for me as a birthday present. She purchased it from The Collectors Slave, which was based out in Canada. At the time of purchase, it was appraised at VF/NM, and she purchased it for $400.00 US. A few weeks ago, someone on eBay sold a Richie Rich #1 for $3065.00 US. It was rated by Comics Guaranty, LLC as an 8.5 VF+, off-white pages. The Overstreet Price Guide values a comic book with that rating at around $1600.00 US. So I thought why not pull my copy out and submit it to CGC for an appraisal. About two weeks later, the book came back in the exact same shape I sent it. It too was rated a 8.5. Fanstastic!!! :) |
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2003_11_10
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