World Alpine

New site that I built focusing on hiking tips, reviews, and gear. Our goals are to promote hiking, mountaineering, climbing and basically anything else that promotes a healthy lifestyle while enjoying nature. Check it out at worldalpine.com.

Japanese company structure

Here is a top-down hierarchy of a typical Japanese company:

Shachou (社長): is the president of the company. According to a coworker, his responsibility is to attend dinner after dinner and play golf with other “Shachou”.

Buchou (部長): are the chiefs of every department (Human Resources, Sales, R&D, etc.). “Shocho” (directors of one of the company’s factories) and “Shitencho” (directors of one of the company’s head offices) also belong to this category.

Kachou (課長): are just below Buchou and they’re the chiefs of every subsection within departments. In order to become a Kachou, you usually need 15 years or more of dedication to the company.

Kakarichou (係長): are the supervisors in charge of assigning specific tasks to the lower-level employees. They usually are in charge of groups of 5 to 10 people.

Kaishain (会社員): the lowest level in a company.

Getting Ankimini working on Android

I recently got a new phone, an android-based Motorola Cliq. Pretty nice phone and my first foray into android. I have lately been adding more Japanese sentences with heavier vocabulary terms and need to study them more frequently as opposed to cramming them in late at night. Thus, I need anki working on my mobile device.

So, after several hours of hacking with ankimini - It is working, but not completely. Currently there is no sound capability - since there is no command line mp3 playing capability in android. I will keep this post up to date with any fixes I find.

Requirements: Android phone, simplejson, sqlalchemy, text editor, no
fear of editing scripts.

Overview: Download required libraries, interpreter. Modify ankimini
slightly in path handling.

1. Download and Install ASE r13,
Go to: http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
from the device browser and download directly to the phone.
Install, and add a python 2.6 interpreter.

2. Plug in device to host computer via USB and mount device. Should be
automatic.
My mount point was /media/disk, this might be different for you.

3. Download simplejson ,untar and install
wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/ … 0.9.tar.gz
tar zxvf simplejson-2.0.9.tar.gz
mv simplejson-2.0.9/simplejson /media/disk/ase/scripts/

4. Download sqlalchemy, untar and install
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sqla … z?download
tar zxvf SQLAlchemy-0.5.6.tar.gz
mv SQLAlchemy-0.5.6/lib/sqlalchemy/ /media/disk/ase/scripts/

5. Download and install Anki (libanki), basically copy libanki/anki to
/media/disk/ase/scripts/
cp -r libanki/anki/ /media/disk/ase/scripts/

6. Copy main.py in ankmini distro into /media/disk/ase/scripts/

7. Change ankmini (main.py) ANKIMINI_PATH to be
ANKIMINI_PATH=os.path.join("/sdcard",".anki")

(There is no home directory for the user, unfortunately we have a
fixed path, but it won't change. Basically the /sdcard root is the
user directory since it is the only part of the filesystem that you
have access to).

8. Create a directory in root of SD card. I called mine .anki. Thus
the directory is /media/disk/.anki

9. Copy anki deck (and associated media if used) to use to this .anki
directory

10. Copy ankimini-config.py to /media/disk/.anki/.

11. Edit ankimini-config.py file

DECK_PATH='/sdcard/.anki/kanji.anki'
SERVER_PORT=8000
PLAY_COMMAND='play'
SYNC_USERNAME=xxx
SYNC_PASSWORD=xxx

12. Open up ASE, click on main.py and this will launch the server. You should see no exceptions or errors.

13. Go to the browser and go to 127.0.0.1:8000 (somehow localhost is not recognized).

(You can also create a short cut to your desktop for the main.py script)

Retrocomputing

I have been lusting after a Apple 1 Replica for the past month or so, however, not much time due to my Japanese studies, work and family. Then I started thinking about tiny modern CPU (PIC, AVR, etc) systems that are built with the sole purpose of being a computer to code on, thing Altair, Apple 1, etc. There aren't many requirements, 4-8k memory, small display (single row, 30-some characters, like the one on a TI cc-40), keyboard interface (cheat: and use a usb interface?), simple monitor software and the key component: BASIC. Anyone know of such a setup? Nonetheless, someday I would like to build one: to relive old memories of my youth hacking basic and have a system that I understand completely (Jack Crenshaw mentioned that he loved a system wherein he understood or built all parts, and I couldn't agree more).

Japanese Study Resources

Browsing Coscom's site I noticed that they had current news, weather and even a listing of popular Japanese names (which I use when modifying/constructing sentences). My current endeavor is slowly working through みんなの日本語 (vol 1; currently I have mined 700+ sentences using 468 unique Kanji), and then vol 2. I am planning on finishing this series by the end of 2009. Using Tae Kim's Guide on Japanese grammar to assist me when I have the urge to write/say something that I cannot recall.

After that series I will start on Coscom's excellent series called Kanji Odyssey. I plan to tackle only volume 1 for now since it is loaded and the Coscom site has worksheets. The first volume I have budgeted three months. Following KO, I will start moving into intermediate level works - starting with an old book I found (with audio in mp3 format) entitled "Introduction to Intermediate Japanese: An integrated course" by 水谷信子 (Nobuko Mizutani). Supposedly, the book is derived from Nihongo Journal.

RTK Progress - Nearing two months after completion

Here is a brief update with respect to review counts. I started this process six months ago, and finished two months back (not quite, but off only a week or so). Thus far my reviews are less than 100 per day. I spend more time that I should on reviews, since I interleave them throughout the day. I am planning on doing a huge review in the morning and be done with them. Currently, this is my only impediment to other Japanese studies - not that this is bad, but it still takes time. Looking forward to when I have less than 50 reviews per day, but occasionally I fail a load of old cards that end up coming into roost for a few days.

Tokyo train stations

Here are the top tourist train stations in Tokyo. Need to incorporate these into my sentence studies somehow.

東京駅　Tokyo Stn
上野駅　Ueno Stn
新宿駅 Shinjuku Stn
渋谷駅 Shibuya Stn
銀座駅　Ginza Stn
表参道駅　Omotesando Stn
原宿駅 Harajuku Stn
浅草駅 Asakusa Stn
六本木駅　Roppongi Stn
品川駅 Shinagawa Stn (easy shinkansen access if you stay in Shibuya area)
両国駅　Ryogoku Stn (sumo stables)