http://youtube.com/watch?v=E3pMBPFUPFM&feature=related
こうやって爆笑したのも久しぶりやな。
あくまで懐かしい苛め方にすぎないけど、なんでこんなにうけるんだろうねw
Archive for
April, 2008
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April 25, 2008 07:45
April 24, 2008 20:03
「ネットカフェ難民」に対して、安定的な生活や就労へのサポートをする「TOKYO チャレンジネット」（新津伸次所長）が23日、東京都健康プラザ 「ハイジア」（新宿区歌舞伎町）内にオープンした。住居がなく、ネットカフェや漫画喫茶等で寝泊まりする労働者を対象に東京都が支援策に乗り出した。 対象となるのは、住居がないが仕事はある、いわゆるネットカフェ難民で、半年以上都内で生活している人。厚生労働省の「住居喪失不安定労働者の実態に関 する調査」では23区内には約2000人がいると推定している。同調査では、20〜30代が41.5％で、40〜50代が45.5％を占めている。また1 カ月の収入は平均10.7万円で、65.5％が非正規雇用、23.6％が失業していた。 「TOKYOチャレンジネット」では生活相談と住居相談、就労相談をする。相談者は原則として電話で相談日時を予約。訪問して相談を受ける。電話受付は月曜日から土曜日までの午前10時から深夜0時まで。相談内容に応じて、資金貸し付けを行う。 貸付額は、住居確保に必要な資金として最大40万円、生活支援として最大20万円まで。貸付は東京都社会福祉協議会が行う。貸付条件は日本国籍がある20歳以上で、都内に6カ月以上生活していること。また就労支援は厚生労働省の協力を得た。 同日はオープンとあってか、開所した直後は電話が鳴り止まなかったという。電話の多くは、40代の男性で、就労形態は非正規雇用。取材のあった14時 30分までには21件の予約が入った。すでに25日は予約で一杯となるなど、生活に困っている「ネットカフェ難民」の要望に応えている。 新津所長は 「生活に必要な初期費用を貸し付けることで、（ネットカフェ難民が）安定した生活を送ることを目指したい。何が困っているかを一緒に考えることで、地域の中で自立した生活が送れるなど問題を解決していきたい」 と話している。
19:53
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s nothing to LOL about: Despite the best efforts to keep school writing assignments formal, two-thirds of teens admit in a survey that emoticons and other informal styles have crept in.
Teens who use social-networking sites such as Facebook have a greater tendency to use emoticons, a survey says.
The results may give parents, teachers and others a big 
— a frown to the rest of us — though the study’s authors said they see hope.
“It’s a teachable moment,” said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew. “If you find that in a child’s or student’s writing, that’s an opportunity to address the differences between formal and informal writing. They learn to make the distinction … just as they learn not to use slang terms in formal writing.”
Half of the teens surveyed said they sometimes fail to use proper capitalization and punctuation in assignments, while 38 percent have carried over the shortcuts typical in instant messaging or e-mail messages, such as “LOL” for “laughing out loud.” A quarter of teens have used 
and other emoticons.
Overall, 64 percent have used at least one of the informal elements in school.
Teens who consider electronic communications with friends as “writing” are more likely to carry the informal elements into school assignments than those who distinguish the two.
The study was co-sponsored by the National Commission on Writing at the College Board, the nonprofit group that administers the SAT and other placement tests.
The chairman of the commission’s advisory board, Richard Sterling, said the rules could possibly change completely within a generation or two: Perhaps the start of sentences would no longer need capitalization, the way the use of commas has decreased over the past few decades. “Language changes,” Sterling said.
Defying conventional wisdom, the study also found that the generation born digital is shunning computer use for most assignments. About two-thirds of teens said they typically do their school writing by hand. And for personal writing outside school, longhand is even more popular — the preferred form for nearly three-quarters of teens.
That could be because the majority of writing is short — school assignments are on average a paragraph to a page in length, Lenhart said.
Among other findings:
The telephone-based survey of 700 U.S. residents ages 12 to 17 and their parents was conducted September 19 to November 16. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
19:47
私には常々気になっている言葉遣いがある。コンビニや多くの飲食店など、われわれが「消費者」として買い物に訪れるところにいる店員さんのものだ。彼らが、おかしな言葉を使うケースがいまだにある。 「○○でよろしかったですか？」 一度くらいは聞いたことのある人もいることだろう。なかには注意する人もいるかもしれない。もちろん、これは間違った日本語だ。 ご存じの通り、「今」のことを話しているのに「よろしかった」と過去形になっているのだ。これはバラエティー番組など、テレビでも一時期頻繁に取り上げ られていたものの、いまだにこういった言葉を使う人がいる。なかには高校生くらいに見えるアルバイト店員であろう若い子もいるのだから仕方ないかもしれな い。しかし、仮にも自分の母国語、間違った使い方は正さなければならないのではないか。 この問題は最近漢字が書けないという学生や大人が多いという問題、つまりわれわれ日本人の「国語力の低下」とも言える、なかなか深刻な問題だ。漢字の問 題はともかくとして、言葉の正しい使い方は小学校など年齢の低いうちから、授業の中にカリキュラムとして取り入れていくべきではなかろうか。 もちろん、すべての人が間違った言葉遣いをしているわけではない。特に最近の高校の授業では「国語表現」という言葉遣いや敬語の正しい使い方に特化した授業を取り入れている学校もあるそうだ。 いずれにしても店員の口にすることというのは、われわれを不愉快にさせたり、逆にすがすがしい気持ちにさせたりすることもある。できれば、こういった気 になる用語の使い方は学校でもそうだが、店側でももっと教育してほしいものだ。接客のプロは言葉遣いもプロでなくてはならないのだから。 記者：中島 雅淑
April 10, 2008 07:45
a friend of mine, who is a proposed education major, recently pointed out to me about some of the less finer aspects of ゆとり教育 (a governmetal attempt to provide a pressure-free learning environment for children upto the high school level), which most people now agree to be synonymous educational decline in japan. the specific example he brought up was the new curriculum guideline drafted by the ministry of education back in 2002 which quotes:
円周率としては3.14を用いるが、目的に応じて3を用いて処理できるよう配慮するalthough we take pi to be 3.14, to serve the purpose [of yutori education] we contend that it be considered as purely 3.
this decision by the ministry of education was highly unpopular and fueled the public’s discontent with the policies of yutori education. the most notorious dissent against this oversimplifcation was reflected by the admissions board of the [once-prestigious] state-run university of tokyo, which in its admissions exam included the question “prove that pi is greater than 3.05″ (円周率が3.05より大きいことを証明せよ)” as one of its mandatory short-answer questions in 2003.
after coming under heavy criticism over the years and as a result of what is understood as heavy governmental lobbying under former prime minister abe shinzo, the ministry of education finally included a new proposal in their 2008 Curriculum Guideline Revision, published 15th of february, to 1. increase the hours of class time spent on formal mathematics, science, computational mathematics, and english and 2. to overturn the 2002 draft which considered pi to be taught as 3, as opposed to 3.14
and i forget what the point of this blog was, but your mother is a whore.
April 6, 2008 20:39
茨城・8人殺傷事件 “ゲームオタク”転落のきっかけ
3月28日10時1分配信 日刊ゲンダイ
茨城県土浦市の荒川沖駅周辺で8人が殺傷された事件。犯人の金川真大（24）の素顔が徐々に明らかになってきた。
引きこもりの殺人ゲーマーは、中学の卒業文集の寄せ書きに〈世の中の人は何ともいわば言え 我が成する事、我のみぞ知る〉と坂本竜馬の詩を書くほどの竜馬好きだった。高校では全国大会に出るほど弓道に熱中したが、部を引退した頃から、人が変わったという。
「目標を失ったようで、クラスで1人だけ就職先も決まらないまま卒業した。それから家に引きこもるようになった」（出身高校関係者）
その後金川はアルバイトを転々とし、今年1月にコンビニ店員を辞めて間もなく文化包丁を購入。残忍な犯行に及んだ。
心理学者の小田晋氏は、こう言う。
「引きこもりでゲームにハマる人間には、もはやバーチャルと現実の境界が曖昧になり、誰かが死ねばゲームの負けは解決するのだと、自分勝手に解釈するのです。特に熱中していたという格闘系のゲームでは相手に勝てなかったことの復讐や腹いせのために、殺意を抱くことが多くあります」
場当たり的に見える一連の金川の行動も、「ナイフは今年1月に通販で、文化包丁は2月に人を殺すために買った」と計画的。それに、犠牲になった三浦芳一さんと山上高広さんは首をひと突きされるなど、殺意も明らかだ。
「首を狙って刺したのは、“征服欲”の表れです。無意識に殺したとは考えられません。『妹を殺そうとした』『小学校を襲うつもりだった』という供述からも、弱者に対して力があるところを誇示したかったのは明らかです」（小田晋氏＝前出）
周囲からは、「（ゲームに）負けるとキレる。勝っても怒ってた」と恐れられていた金川。犯行を防げなかった茨城県警の責任は改めて重い。
‘히키코모리 살인’ 40代 자살
[경향신문] 2008년 04월 06일(일) 오후 10:42
ㆍ잠적후 나무에 목매 숨진채 발견
지난달 24일 서울 성북구 한 출판업체 직원 살해후 잠적한 용의자 임모씨(40)가 6일 오후 3시쯤 돈암동 북악산 등산로 부근에서 나무에 목을 매 숨진 채 발견됐다. 임씨는 아버지(88)가 운영하는 출판업체 직원 권모씨(58)를 흉기로 찔러 숨지게 한 뒤 한국판 ‘히키코모리(은둔형 외톨이)형 살인’ 사건(경향신문 4월2일자 10면 보도)으로 주목받았다. 경찰 조사 결과 임씨는 인터넷 게시판에 “(권씨를) 죽이고 나도 목을 매겠다”는 내용의 글을 올려 범행과 자살을 암시했던 것으로 드러났다. 경찰은 임씨가 범행 직후 자살한 것으로 보고 인터넷 게시 글 등을 통해 정확한 경위를 조사 중이다.
the japanese (first) article is talking about a recent event that happened in ibaraki prefecture about a hikikomori (someone who is reluctant to leave his own room or house) who murdered one and inflicted injuries on seven as a way of blowing steam after losing in a beat ‘em up fighting game. the korean (second) article is a murder-suicide that was inspired by the hikikomori murder incident where a corporate worker, who posted on an online forum that he was going to murder one of his fellow workers and then commit suicide, was found with his neck hung to a tree.
hikikomori-ism is probably seen as signs of mental defectation here in stateside, but it seems to have become a popular, yet dismal, trend that has been brought on by the 21st century. rather than to go out and socialize as did generations before them, largely depressed student groups in asia are more prone to be found in their rooms on some online forum or playing a video game of some sort, usually alone in a self-confined room.
but if you think about it, who is to blame? is it technology in the form of computers and videogames that have opened doors for violent thoughts to arise among these people? maybe. or is it the cruel environment that have made so many students feel so devastated and unwelcome that have forced them into hiding and self-confinement? possibly. but the fact remains that there is no definite cause for hikikomori-ism, as neither technology which has contributed so much non-violent, non-resulting-in-pathetic-murder inventions that we take for granted and have found homes in our everyday life, nor society which is in most case a flourishing medium of human communications and interaction can be pointed the full finger.
maybe it’s genetic–psychological research (as superficial as its reputation is) has shown over recent years that clinical depression maybe caused by genes, rather than surroundings in some people–or maybe its a rampant, inexplicable combination of not having friends while being expose to videogames that promote violence, who knows.
but to think that loneliness can cause one to go adrfit to the point as to express that empty void by taking away another life (and plunging it into the void known as death) is a pretty awful reckoning.
if i ever become a hikikomori that plays violent games all day, feel free to report me to the police before anything goes out of hand.
April 3, 2008 09:06
so i was watching another episode of the sopranos while taking a break from work,
and they were talking about creation and evolution using the usual stereotypical arguments; the usual “the world was created in six thousand years because the bible said so” or “carbon dating and dinosaurs indicate the world has been around for millions and millions of years and such.”
having been a christian for most of my pre-college life is probably the biggest source of my scrutiny/negative bias to this whole bipartisan debate, but over the past few years i’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to see it is to probably keep an open (yet suspecting) mind on both theories.
christianity
in the beginning god created the universe, a whole lot of shit happened, and now we’re here. my biggest beef with this idea is not with the idea itself but how the idea is carried out unto its believers. many credit christianity as the source of history past the middle ages (rome’s conversion to christianity, the crusades, the protestant revolution, the british immigration to america, etc.) but something tells me that it’s not right to adhere to a majority opinion just because there are powerful figures that promote its existence.
a big chunk of my disgust toward christianity came after finding out about an event in the history of christianity (cherished both by its followers and its doubters) known as the council of nicaea, an event where various ideas and beliefs of the religion was altered to better suit the roman empire at the time–the bible, or the book in which christianity vests all its authority was censored and parts of it were purged at this time, which to me poses a great doubt about the validity of the rest of its contents, whether it was verified by the dead sea scrolls or not–this event basically added pagan elements into the religion so that it may be more receptive to its once and future pagan nation. the fact that a religion must be altered to suit humans seems to defeat the purpose of a divine-inspired religion: for after all it is man who should change to better serve god, not god who should change to better serve man (this is quoted somewhere in the book of romans)
evolution
i have two issues against evolution. so if theoretically everything evolves to better fit changing environments and thus uphold the idea that only the strong survive, why are some of the “primative” forms still in existence? if humans are evolved from primative monkeys, shouldnt all monkeys be humans by now given the idea that the humans are superior forms of monkey? why are obsolete types still loitering around in such mass quantities?
my second beef with the idea that science is superior is in the fact that it fails to explain where everything began. the big bang theory is interesting, but why did it happen? why did something completely disregarding the third law of thermodynamics occur (going from nothing to something, as opposed to something to nothing) in order for existence as we know it to be created?
in any case, this is only a brief chunk of the questions i have in regards to religion/science, and i’ll gradually add more ideas to it as my undestanding of this subject matter becomes richer. but the fact remains that both science and religion, if it were to be completely credited to be true, require a sort of blind faith–and the risks within both are pretty much the same in terms of the blind faith i think–so its basically upto making a keen decision about which blind faith is more culpable and feasible… or just choosing not to take in neither at all…
April 1, 2008 09:44
眠れない
なぜかと言えば
悩み事？
my insomnia is probably induced by my irregular sleeping and eating habits as of late, but i decided i should try to outline my concerns for this quarter anyways as it seems best to let things out other than keep it bottled up inside.
1. internship/career
so apparently now i have a choice between going to new york in october or keeping to my original plan and going to the hague after i graduate with legal studies. whereas going to new york would give me a solution as to whereto go after college, i probably wont be able to graduate with legal studies (or it will be increasingly difficult since i’ll have to move stuff around alot more) and the fact that the internship isnt a paid internship and the idea of living in new york city alone is quite expensive… on the other hand, i can still try for the nlp research position but i don’t quite know how to accomplish that at that stage…
2. social issues
for some reason it’s been feeling moreso as if i’ve either been pushing people away or just growing more insecure about being a sociable person. that and the fact that i havent seen my family in over a year and a half is a little annoying, but i guess i’ll live.
3. haircut
i really need to get my haircut. but i dont really want to go bouzu again, and would rather have it trimmed… or get it cornrow’d like freshman/sophomore year, but that would be too much to ask for maybe
4. classes
i already have 180 credits, but i need the right classes to come up so i can graduate with the BAs in respective subjects. i guess alot of other people are in this situation too, but meh, it is frustrating…
5. consumer whorism
i think i did a good job keeping this down so far, but i do need another pair of pants since my last one got jacked with my bag… also waiting on chris to send me those graniph shirts when he gets back from scuba-ing.
6. weight/health concerns
i need to get back into regular running schedule again, i think i’ve been putting this one off for too long. also need to take better care of myself; havent smoked for three months which is an improvement i guess, but i should also consider taking it easy with the alcohol. and i guess no diet coke and monster for this quarter.
7. part-time
i am officially out of ideas on what to teach the kids, and i think i’m also getting quite complacent about not waking up as early as i need to… need to fix the”early-morning-speech impediment” asap.
8. letting go
i guess i still suck at closing old chapters and letting old emotions go. what’s done is done, time to move on with life.
9. playlist
i’ve been meaning to make a workout playlist for four months and still haven’t gotten to making one. why am i such a lazy bastard.
10. money
i guess money has been a little tighter in the past few months but hopefully the situation will play out a little better.
11. citizenship
haven’t decided on which citizenship to keep, and whether i want to apply for US citizenship… i guess it all depends on what i decide to do over the summer.
12. language
all my languages are starting to suck, including english. need to reignite my proficiency curve somehow. oh, and the internships really focus heavily on french and chinese, so need to brush up on both sometime before the end of the year.