The biggest earthquake hit Japan

It is horrible. The biggest earthquake has hit Japan yesterday night.
The first one hit northern part of Japan, which magnitude was 8.8 the biggest one since we started to measure the seismic intensity. It causes Tsunami and Tsunami is killing and missing more people than the earthquake.

I happened to know about this news through Facebook.
One of my friends wrote on her wall about the quake.
Then I went to Twitter to see what it was happening.
My friends wrote about how big the earthquake was or they wrote if they are alive and safe.
Through Twitter, I could know if my friends are doing okay, what had been broken, or what people need to do when the earthquake happens.
This tragedy is really really horrible.
But they are trying to help each other through Twitter. They share their imformation and encourage each other.
After the class, I'm watching Japanese news through USTREAM.
It tells me the situation real time.
It is good to know what is happening in Japan, but at the same time, I feel despaired because I can do nothing for them.
All I can do is to pray for them and for Japan itself.
Fortunately, my family and friends are all safe. I could know through the Internet. Thank you very much, the new technology.
However, new earthquake is still happening in different region so that I don't know what will happen to our region...
I realized how grateful my friends are just alive, so God, please, don't kill anyone anymore.
At this time, more than 1000 people are dead or missing.
I really hope everyone will be safe....

And everybody who saw this blog,
please pray with me for Japan.

The New Media? Or the Quality?

I found an article about the decrease of selling CDs these days. (Japanese article, so I can't put the link...)
The article says that the decrease of selling CDs is not caused by the new media, but is caused by the CDs themselves.
I mean, the quality of songs are decreasing these days. That's why the number of CDs are still in the CD store or being unsold.

What do you think about this opinion?
Do you think the quality of songs are decreasing so that you don't want to buy CDs?

I personally think it is true in some way because I don;t want to say, but Japanese songs are getting sucks...
There is not so much fascinating songs for me...

Anyway, what do you think?

Will CDs die..or not??

Today, we talked about the music industry at the first half of the class.
And Professor asked us if the music industry will disappear or not.

My answer is..
I guess at least in Japan, it won't die for couple of decades.
The reason why I think this way is that Japan has so many CD rental shops.
The main CD rental shops are TSUTAYA and GEO.

They lend us CDs, Albums, and DVDs for limited duration (one day, two day, a week, two weeks and so on).
Therefore, many Japanese use these shops so that they can get higher quality sound than just download from the Internet, and the price of lending is also cheap.
I don't know if the U.S. has these kind of rental shops a lot, but if there are, I think CDs won't die.

Nowadays, TSUTAYA and GEO started delivery service of CDs and DVDs.
We can purchase on online so that we don't need to go to the store.
It's more convenient than before!
This service uses the Internet, but it doesn't harm the music industry or the rental shops.
Isn't it an awesome thing? :)

Personally, I hope the music industry won't die.
I want the high quality of the sound to remain...

Firefox

Couples of weeks ago, we talked about the browser in class.
Actually, before we talked in class, I had no idea the difference between browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, and so on.
So I was just using the Internet Explorer as my browser because if I double click the image of the Internet, it will take me to the Internet.
However, after I listened to the discussion in class that the Internet Explorer is bad, I felt guilty using it. Then I started to search about the Firefox because they said it's faster and NCC recommends it.
Since I do not know anything about browser, I was a little bit scary changing my browser.
What will happen to my bookmarks? What are the merits and demerits?
The official website of the Firefox solved my problems!
It has explanation videos of the Firefox for the beginners about the features or the convinient way of using it.
Therefore, I decided to use the Firefox as my browser.
It is similar to the Internet Explorer, but it is faster and the addons are so convinient!

I regret that I didn't know such a good browser for a long time!
I can say that I can't go back and use the Internet Explorer again! :)

I wonder if the user of the Firefox will exceed that of the Internet Explorer...

The Net Generation

We, born around 1990's, are in the middle of transforming of media.
When I think of my early childhood, I watched TV programs for kids or other stuff, but mostly, I was playing outside with my friends and family (mainly my dad and 3 years older brother).
However, the big desktop came to my house when I was 3rd grade in elementary school.
This was a big change for my family. Although the time we spend outside didn't quite change, we started to spend time with our computer a lot.
My dad and I competed which can type faster on certain things, or my brother and I played with online game.
When I was 5th grade, I got a cellphone because my brother got one, too.
I begged my mom to buy it because if I have one, it seems cool!
She was convinced due to the security things.
After that, I became not to be able to live without a phone.
YES, I was addicted to a phone.
Besides, I bought MP3 player by myself and started to play video game with my brother so that my life was surrounded with new media.
However, I don't think the new media has a bad influence on young children.
It can give us educational things and more information.
Many parents are worried about violation and indecent stuff, but now there are many security on online so that children will be protected.

I have just one concern. That is, young kids no longer play in outside. They don't know how to play sports or they luck of ability to play.
This is becoming a serious concern among Japanese people.

If they would know the balance between outside activity and inside one, that might work the best for younger digital generation.

Facebook is nowhere in Japan

I found an interesting article about the relationship between Facebook and Japanese people.
Japanese tend not to use Facebook.
Do you know why?
According to the article, Japanese don't want to use real names.
Instead, they use nicknames in Japanese social networks such as Mixi and Gree.
Japanese are wary of using real names on the Internet.

I can agree with this article.
Many Japanese don't want to show their private life, even names, to the public.
That's why Facebook is not so popular in Japan.
However, after the great hit of "Social Network," I think many Japanese started to create Facebook account.
But I can say that one of the reasons they started creating an account is Japanese people like popular things.
Personally, I like Facebook better than Japanese social networks, so I hope Facebook will be familiarized to Japanese.
By the way, I also think that when I use Facebook, I feel like I am forced to use English...so do my friends.
I don't know why, but even if Facebook has become world wide SNS, we think it is American, which makes us use English.

Here's an article, "Facebook Is Nowhere In Japan."

Oh, I forgot to tell you.
Please don't think that these 3 people showed in this article are normal Japanese!
They are not that normal for us, either!!
They are just prominent..
Appearance of most Japanese like me or same as American people! :) LOL

 

Thank God GOOGLE

Thank you Google, you saved my roommate!

She was doing her homework for Accounting class.
The homework was about to write a memo, but she didn't know what "CC" is.
And she was really upset because she can't go forward if she doesn't know it.
So...what she did was.....

Google it!

Then, Google showed the answer to her question.
To be accurate, Google showed the Yahoo! Answers about "cc."
Isn't it weird?
It's weird for me because Google showed Yahoo! in the first result of that page.
In my image, Google and Yahoo! are separate things.

But anyway, Google saved my roommate.
I appreciate that! :)