I took a little walk around today, past the White House, and thought I'd share a few photos of the area. Maybe it will give a different perspective than the usual perfect images you see... :)

This is one of the seemingly millions of guys who sell hot dogs in D.C. He sells them right outside my building though, so I buy them often. I usually get a half-smoke with saurkraut, relish, onions, mustard, and chili for $1.50. Pretty good deal.

One day I talked to him a bit and found out that he was actually from Afghanistan. I think a lot of people fail to realize what an insanely diverse place D.C. is. All these government people are coming out at lunch and buying their food from a guy from Afghanistan, and not thinking a thing of it.

I decided to walk around the back of the White House, and make a big circle to come back to my building... Here you can see the first guard post I passed, checking cars that drive through the big park behind the White House. Some cars can park in here, so they've clamped down now. I used to use this as a shortcut sometimes to avoid traffic on Constitution Ave...

I saw an interesting bunch of guys coming out by the back of the White House, all in imposing suits. Pretty obviously Secret Service or something, all heading out to lunch. I thought of doing a number of funny things at this point, and didn't do any of them. I even took their picture from behind. ;)

From this point, I continued walking around the fence to look at the White House from the back. It's a nice view on this side, and you can see the Washington Monument right behind you.

Here's where you can see it from the back. The grass is really green now because it's been raining non-stop here for at least a couple of weeks. It's extremely nice to see the sun again, but it must have been over 90 degrees again today, so it's a mixed blessing.

There is a little park on the side of the White House that you used to be able to walk through. No more — Here's a picture of the chain around the gate. I have never actually gone through here before...

So now we arrive at Pennsylvania Ave. This street used to carry regular traffic, but now is entirely blocked off. The change was made a few years ago, before 9/11, actually. I think it was done when some schmuck started spraying bullets at the White House during Clinton's days. The guard posts are still somewhat impermanent-looking. This is actually the back of the barricade. I wonder whether they'll at least make these look nice someday. The barricades in Japan are so nicely designed...

This group was somewhat amusing. ;) They were just such stereotypical political groupies. I'm sure they do something in politics.

I took a couple of shots of the White House here as well. I think the most interesting thing is to see how it looks with the street empty now... Most people probably have no idea what it's like, but it's actually quite strange. It feels wrong, probably because it's clear that this street was designed to be used, and now it's not. They should probably make this a pedestrian street with stone or brick if it's going to be permanently blocked off.

Since this is starting to get long, I'll just leave you with a picture of the White House press area. You can easily see this from the sidewalk — it's where almost all the reporters give their little blurbs about white house events. I actually saw a reporter from an Arabic channel the other day, but she was taking it from across the street. It was funny to see her speaking Arabic all seriously, and then all of a sudden say "Thanks a lot Borris, I think that's it."...

Gen Kanai weblog: The sad story of Takako Konishi

This is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard.

I've been frustrated by the seeming naivete of the "Slashdot Crowd" when it comes to making a living with software. (Well, actually, with regard to a large number of issues, but...)

The software developers in this country have really given up a lot. They've given up the chance to make a huge amount of money, and given up a large number of jobs to India and China, due to lack of labor organization and open source. I have seen a major desktop software company where I used to work lay off over 90% of their programmers, and build a huge facility in India instead. This could have been prevented. Geeks can often be far too idealistic and far too lacking in practical self-interest. Oops.

Open source doesn't have a great deal to do with this trend, but it certainly doesn't help. Giving away the stuff that could make your living for you is never a smart thing from a self-interest perspective. Sure, it works in individual cases, but think about the broader effect -- free software is available for people to use, removing the need for many of those with the desire and knowledge to write software and make money at it, and also removing some of the potential for improving on that software, because only those with free time can work on it. I use free software because it's free, but I'd pay for something that did the same job if I had to, and that might employ one of my friends. It's as simple as that.

On the other hand, those running the companies have shown almost no appreciation for skill. I know that most of the Indian coders are still not very good at the moment. Sorry, it's a fact, Jack. They lack the skill because they lack the background and the environment to develop it easily. They are able to do simple tasks, but they cannot handle even some of the easiest architecture jobs. This will certainly change as they get more work and more experience, and I have nothing against them personally -- who wouldn't want to improve their lot through education and hard work?

This is simply a question of self-interest. Do we as Americans want to give up our technical domination of this field? Do we want to allow a competitor to learn enough to compete with us qualitatively, while undercutting us royally due to the low costs and low standard of living in their country...? Most of us would say no. Maybe I'll feel differently once I'm out of this field, and can look at it more objectively -- see it as more of a macroeconomic issue...

But, probably not. It's just too personal an issue to me when so many extremely intelligent people I know have been out of work for periods due to this phenomenon. Globalization does many good things, and everyone talks about how the world is moving more and more quickly... But how quickly (or easily) can a software engineer learn an entirely new profession and change careers? At some point, we run into the temporal limitations of human beings with regard to learning new information. We just can't learn another career in the time it takes for investors to move their money, and this is going to create great social problems.

I think, it is inevitable that globalization will proceed for economic reasons. But we can and must institute safeguards to allow workers to keep up with investors. Change cannot be allowed to proceed at a pace that could leave an entire industry of extremely smart people unemployed for years, and expect them to go to school again to boot. There needs to be a slower transition, or there need to be other methods of managing this sort of change, just as there are safeguards and checks on global stock market trading...

There have been a lot of stories about these trends lately... I hope that we can find a good solution to these problems without people resorting to traditionally one-sided liberal labor philosophy. It's not a workers vs. companies problem. It's not a "class" problem. It's an engineering problem: How do we manage inevitable change in a reasonable way?

It frustrates me that no one seems to think like this in approaching these problems.

WSJ.com - Tokyo Cuisine: From Udon Noodles To Seafood, Freshness Is the Secret (Pay)

Nice review of some of the good restaurants in Tokyo. I sure wish I could get back over there sometime.............

Yesterday, I played 9 holes of .... Ggg... G.. Golf... <whew>

I never thought I would do it. It was always something I thought only old people did. Or yuppie frat boys. Which is true. But I don't blame them anymore, because it's actually kinda fun... ;)

Anyway, I went to play with my Dad for Father's Day, and it was fun, and I actually did pretty well. My BaGua helped quite a bit. I've done a lot of different sports (swimming, kayaking, climbing, Aikido, BaGua) though, so I have a good sense of how to learn new forms of movement...

I guess I'll be trying to go more so I can get the hang of it... I hope my wife will still love me now............ I think she's a bit afraid of what I'm becoming. But, when you think about it, it's just another form of open-mindedness.

Hmmm.

So, I have a good job now, which will allow me flexible hours if I decide to work and go to law school simultaneously. I know where I'm going, too: George Mason University Law School. It's nearby, in northern Virginia, and it's a good school for intellectual property, well known among law firms and lawyers. A lot of the best lawyers from D.C. firms teach there as well.

It's been a long long road. I first decided to go to law school about a year ago, when I posted this. I had to go through the process of signing up for the LSDAS, talking to all my connections, trying to get recommendations, getting stuff signed by my alma mater, getting transcripts, studying hard for and taking the LSAT, writing personal statements and essays and filling out applications... I can't believe it took over a year...

Now, I have to decide. I can go to school full time, which will be financially difficult, or I can go to school at night, work during the day, and have more than enough money but no free time. I am leaning toward the latter. If I go full time, I'll finish in 3 years, but part time will take 3.5-4 years. I think I'll be much less stressed if I don't have to worry about money in addition to everything else though.

I'm starting to feel the impending doom... ;) Orientation is August 16. That is also the day I have to fork over a major wad of cash...

Well, I have to make this decision as soon as possible so they can start fitting people into classes... I've got to say, I'm the first and only coder I know who will be transmogrified into a lawyer. ;) It's strangely exciting.

Sweet.

I finally got an iPod, and the new models rock house. I'll post some glamour shots when I get a chance... ;) My only problem is that I have to go to my mom's house to rip CDs on her iMac yet.

I was psyched when I saw that it came with an adapter to allow me to plug it into my Vaio. But I've been nursing this old Vaio for years now, and it's still running 98 — iPod no like 98...

So, I'm planning to get a new laptop to use in law school anyway, and I'm really thinking that the TR1 is the sweet package. ;) Hey Albi — maybe I'll ask you to snag me one of these puppies in Akihabara... ;) A sony would be nice, since they all have built-in firewire. Apple will also be coming out with a software update to allow the new iPods to use USB 2, but I'd have to buy a separate cable...

They're also supposed to come out with a version of iTunes for Windows later this year, so maybe I can finally use iTunes and resize the grid control fields by clicking on their edges (one of my pet peeves about OSX).

But as for the iPod, I got the 10gig version as a gift, and it's extremely cool. I've got about 3.5 gigs on it so far; awesome. I put a writeright screen protector over the screen, cut to fit. Those things are great as well. Yuki and I both have them on our palms, and she had one on her phone screen too. I recommend that if you have any electronics with a screen, just slap one of these on and cut it to fit. They last a very long time.

So I'm walking around feeling cool now with this iPod. You know, I thought I'd see more people with them... I guess it's still more popular among students than among businesspeople.

It's also nice to note how well it supports Japanese and other Asian languages. I have some song names in Japanese, some English, and some Icelandic. ;) No problem for this device. hehe.

Another thing — you don't really need the remote for the iPod, because the new one is so small anyway. I like to browse around it and see what I'm going to listen to next.

As for my other gadgets, they're rapidly approaching obsolescence. My Palm V has served me since '98, and my Vaio, while reliable, seems to be getting slower and slower, while in reality other machines have just gotten faster. I'm running into things I can't do with it, since it can only run Win98. My phone is ok, but I can't expect to get a really cool phone here in the U.S. Service is always spotty and we won't be getting 3G anytime soon. My second best gadget now (after the iPod) is probably my Japanese dictionary.

In the spirit of my newfound outgoingness, I finally went to a Chinese conversation group that meets here in D.C. They call it the Chinese Table...

So I finally got to speak Chinese for more than 2 minutes. When I used to work at Quark in Denver, there were a bunch of Chinese guys there I used to chat with, but now I don't know anyone who wants to speak it... Most 2nd generation Chinese seem to like English better. So this was actually a really great experience, and I'm planning to go again (and drag my wife Yuki next time ;) ).

There were about 15 people there, and quite an interesting group. I talked for a long time with two people who are studying Chinese in an intensive course to prepare for assignment abroad with the State Department. There was another girl there who had been in the boonies in China for 8 months doing Peace Corps, and got dragged home because of SARS... She's now working for a defense contractor. Get that — crazy. She says she gets flak from her liberal friends for that, hehe.

Guardian Unlimited -- Japan emerges from its pacifist shell

I hope that Japan can slowly but increasingly assert itself militarily. Japan needs to rediscover its pride, but also reinvent the basis of that pride. It needs to be less racial and less egotistical than pre-WWII, but more assertive and more confident than the last 50 years. Japan has been laying low, trying not to express too much confidence about itself for too long. Japanese should be able to say they're proud to be Japanese without reproach...

At the same time, working out how that can be done practically will bring forth a host of issues. Can immigrants be proud to be Japanese? What does Japanese identity mean? Does it have to be racial? I don't think so, but changes like this will only come slowly, just like the progress in women's rights over the past 10 years or so...

WSJ.com - Chinese Banks Could Require State Bailout, Regulator Says

I wonder how much China's high growth rate depends on Chinese banks. At any rate, if their banks are in such bad shape as this article suggests, it could really alter the recent phenomenon of over-focusing on investment in China as the economic savior of Asia...