I am now obsessed too much

Finally I am surrounded with apple products now, first from ipod nano, ipod touch(3rd &4th), and iPad, and now Macbook Air. My life these days won't work without them. I woke up and open Macbook Air to write a blog, hit an ipod touch app to see twitter, browse through articles, and keep track of the day(some thing like how much I devote myself to developing, etc), and use iPad to read deeply such as Hacker News, e-books(for online lecture, and other field of computer science), and manga. I can say that the time I spend with one of those gadget is longer than that of time without those. I live without them only when sleeping, eating, taking shower...

I was surprised to realize that my hand looks for iPod touch immediately after I wake up. And I now think this is a little dangerous. I recalled one article.

Why I returned my iPad

http://longtailworld.blogspot.com/2010/06/ipadwhy-i-returned-my-ipad-hbr.html

This is exactly the reason I am feeling uneasy. They are too good, too portable. I had a long time I shouldn't have spent with those gadgets. It is not that time with those is better than that of without them. We need a time of boring. Having nothing to do, our brain starts to roam and find something. Using those gadget mainly for input. therefore, using those too much means endless constant input to brain. brain needs time to organize, reflect, and repeat. that is done when we sleep under unconscious, and boring time under conscious. both are needed.

I have to say this to myself. These products are not what you created, some people around the world who are really top-notch created, it is not honor just to used it well. The point is what you do with them, and that has to be your work. not imitating, and common. Be careful about this.

Macbook Air Coming now

I ordered new Macbook Air on July 23, at that time, I was in 2 minds whether I go to apple store directly buy or not, but eventually I noticed I missed out a wave of MBA, that I wanted the one that has US keyboard. And then I ordered it through online apple store. 11 inch, cpu is core i5, SSD storage is 128GB, and US keboard using student sale.

And after that, this has been a real hardship. I hate waiting actually. I know I just need to be the attitude of "So what?" and wait, but I just can't do that simple things. I checked the status of shipment over and over again. I went to board to see how other people go. Yes, I admit I am a little too sensitive.

But let me excuse, the product deserve it! When I touched at the store first hand, I felt that dramatically thin and fast and beauty of that. And furthermore, I wanted small size laptop to bring to anywhere to school mainly. And write blog article in the morning immediately, and take memo, programming in MacOS, etc.. The launch day was perfect actually, because the day was almost on the end of exam!! volia!!

Now, I am waiting for it in calm mood for the excitement of time using it.

PS: the transit branch warehouse is really close to my house, what the hell are they doing?!

Life after graduation

In the not so far future, I will be graduated from university. I am planning to go to graduate school, and now I am thinking about going overseas to study. However, this motivation comes from the benefit of living foreign country, not from benefit of learning specific field of computer science. And I know the motivation should be made of both. My motivation now only has former element. That is not enough, that will make my life there not efficient, aimless, language-learning oriented. If I have passion to learn something there, I have goal to achieve that will make my life there perfect. Now, I've got to think about major of my major. More concrete parts of Computer Science. Here are some topics that interest me.

1. Computer Architecture: I like this field, but I feel it has swollen well already meaning there may not enough space to develop further, this requires further examination

2. Software Engineering: I like programming, I feel so concentrated when programming, time goes faster. I know that a lot of possibility there, but at the same time, I feel its uncertainty, its less long life, if I get old, I would not be able to program anymore.

3. Computer Vision/Entertainment/AR: I feel this field is developing really fast and the world demands this. I know the bright future of this field intuitively. And this really fascinates me.

4. Machine learning, NLP :: This is the field that seems interesting. But I have not done this any part of this, that I really don't have any idea now.

OMG!! I really don't know. Computer is fun, that I can't decide which way to go.

We never know where the dot connect to, we just know it after it connected.

Be positive, and passionate. Stay foolish, stay hungry.

TOEFL Writing Practice

Do you think it's better to focus on one subject in college or study a variety of subjects in college?

I see a lot of successful people who are really good at one field. They look professional doing one thing thoroughly, and people start to think doing one thing is enough. However, I think learning only one subject won't lead you to success because of some characteristics of this world.

Firstly, in this world, things are connected each other in a complex way. You have to combine one thing with another to invent and develop products, and solve problems. Even if you have one really strong academic tool in the perspective of university, you are equals to someone who has only one thing in the society. Human being have experienced a lot of technologies using combination of more than one fields such as computers, television, and etc. More perspective and tools you have, more chances you can have.

Secondly, the world changes really quickly. There is no guarantee that what you got in university will always useful. Taking the world of computers for example, the history of computers is very short that our view toward using computer will change in the near future just like the history shows. Having more than one tools will help you survive in such a world.

Lastly, I think that's sad just pursuit one thing in this wonderful world. There are a lot of attractive and curious things. For me, I can't resist to learn them. You can't kill your curiosity just because your major is something definite. Learning something other than your major is always possible.

In conclusion, I think it is better to study a variety of subjects in college because of the world. In this world, we face a lot of changing problems and excitements. We can't survive living here with only one tool. Furthermore, you will enjoy your life if you hear your voice of curiosity and try to focus on something interests you.

One nature of learnining foreign language

I found one thing about learning foreign language. And this will alarm the trend going on in Japan that is learning English is something proud of, or that will brings you something valuable. There are so many people learning English for ambiguous things.
The assumption is that we all human have almost the same world of meaning. We have something to tell and mean in our mind. And language is about how well that can tell to the others. If you are fluent enough to tell what you have 100%, the language is supreme. This is true for native language of people. Maybe not 100%, but around 90% to 99% of course. And if you use foreign language you are not familiar, say you only know how to say "Hello", the rate the language can tell what you have in mind is almost 0%!! And learning foreign language can be seen as heighten the rate from 0 to certain amount. You can't heighten it over 100%. This is the point. Language is just a tool to tell what you have or get something that you can reach using language. Make no mistake that just learning English won't bring anything special. There are so many people speaking English just have born in English-speaking countries. We learn English just because it became the lingua franca, we just want to take advantage of using English.

Summer Vacation now starting

I passed 2 tests without exams, so that it is now summer vacation!! (earlier than my classmates lol) Now, I'll talk about the plan for this long holidays. I'll make great use of this to make a breakthrough, and leap in the level far above, and have some fun!! Here are some abstract plans.
1. Preparing for studying abroad
I'm really considering studying abroad so that I need to collect information as much as I can. Especially I have to have a good score of TOEFL. I think I'll have a TOEFL test until the end. And I aim to get a certain level of score.

2. Computer Science
Since I was too busy doing things done at school, I'll do a lot of my computer science that I couldn't proceed. I'm considering doing C++ course, and OpenCV that is a library of C++ that enables us to do computer vision, and I am also interested in natural language processing and machine learning so that I'll take online courses of Stanford.
I think good engineer do things that interest them really passionately. and luckily I have strong interest in those field. I'll do that!! What's good of this is that I can learn computer while learning English, this concurrency is really making it effective and efficient.
Also, if there is time and money, I'll challenge making iOS application. Now I'm considering buying Macbook Air.