its1204.com

I never imagined I'd be categorizing a post into food, culture and gadgets, but here we are.

Pictures of the new Asus 9" Eee PC 900 were published today on flickr. I'm looking forward to trying this device out... The 7" version was kinda nifty, but having the screen fill the bezel should increase utility of the Eee quite a bit.  Judging by the composition of the picture, I'm guessing it was put up by someone from Taiwan or Hong Kong; the casual shot features the popular machine next to a pretty typical Chinese dinner of fried fish and pickled vegetables and pork. As people commenting on the Engadget post show, however, this type of food is particularly unappetizing for some Western readers.

It's interesting that such a seemingly mundane post could strike a chord with me. As our clientele shifts more and more to the mainstream market (people accustomed to Western culture), we run into these sort of large cultural gap situations every day. For Americans going to Japan, Asian food can be quite a shocking experience. Even though the fish shown in the picture is close to its natural form (aside from the big slice exposing its bones), Americans are so accustomed to eating food processed beyond recognition that it's become disgusting to eat things in pure form.

Of course, being born and raised in the US and thoroughly Americanized, I can completely sympathize with those appetites that are totally turned off by the sight of such a thing. There are still plenty of more 'exotic' things I have a hard time stomaching. I just wish people wouldn't be so quick to judge and consider that natural just might be better.

My house is pretty close to the San Gabriel foothill area, so the fire that started up this weekend has been acutely affecting us over here.  The skies have been a dim grey and flakes of ash are floating down to the earth like snow.

My boss, who lives quite close, has already been evacuated.  Her car was covered with soot from all the brush burning up and her husband mentioned they were able to hear the crackling of the blaze throughout the night.

Thankfully, no casualties have been reported yet, but there have been several close calls including a trapped wedding party and a squad of firefighters who all made it out safely in the end.

They're hoping the slight drop in temperatures being forecast for the rest of the week will help prevent the fire from spreading, but of course, these things are hard to predict.  Last I read, they're still expecting about a week before things may return to normal...

Wow, so the case has finally wound to a close and Hans Reiser has been declared guilty of first-degree murder.  For those who may not be familiar with the case, Reiser was a developer accused of killing his wife. In the software world, he was probably most known for his work with the ReiserFS filesystem.  The murder trial was a big deal for those in the Linux community partially due to the popularity and anticipation of Reiser's past work, and of course, due to the sensationalist-style story.

It seems the general consensus is that Reiser screwed himself when he chose to testify against his attorney's firm suggestion not to.  His strategy of going for the semi-autistic/anti-social 'geek' defense didn't work out either.

As an aside, I've been looking into updating my filesystem of choice for OS installation. I still utilize ext3 or Reiser4 for my OS partitions depending on the requirements, but xfs has proven to be quite robust as well. Anybody got some recent benchmarks?

UPDATE: There is an interesting discussion on future implications for Linux from yesterday's events taking place on Slashdot.

Apparently LA's first cosplay restaurant/cafe will be opening soon.  There's some conflicting information about the actual opening date for the cafe section, but the gallery section had an opening event last week.  If you're into it, check it out - it's a maid cafe/art gallery out in Culver city called ROYAL/T.  Although from the looks of it, it's quite different from the ones in Akihabara.

The PORTA-PARTY from the video looks cool.

Bizarre.

I've been watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as a recommendation from I-en.  It's a good series so far with enough elements of depth, giant robots joining together to make bigger robots, parody, and overall zany shit to keep me watching.  At the moment, I'm not sure if it'll surpass some of the favorites on my list but either way, I'll definitely pass on the recommendation based on what I've seen so far.

There was a bit of buzz surrounding this series around the time when the infamous '4th episode' incidents took place - rather unfortunate series of circumstances, but I haven't had a chance to pick it up until now.

Watching it, you see a lot of elements from FLCL and Abenobashi-type humor.  Perhaps that familiarity or style is why I like it.  Gogo Gainax.