Mac developers have more fun

At least according to this book I found in Tokyo : )

Skyler asked me to keep a lookout for cute or bizarre translations, and this was my favorite. I have no idea what it meant to say, but it's a wonderful thought anyway. I wonder what the Windows development books were titled...

I found two of our books translated into Japanese:

The inside of Head First Java is hilarious... all the fifties people with thought bubbles half in Japanese but with code and class names in English. The translators did a spectacular job on it, fitting everything in while preserving the original design page for page, picture for picture. We have no idea what it actually says.

And from a warning sign at a trail in the mountains near Mt. Fuji:

And while I'm posting Japan pictures, here's one I took of a Harajuku girl:

Gwen Stefani fans or anyone who's visited Tokyo recently probably knows what I'm talking about, but here's more info.

And yet another difference between Japan and the US... their skill at the game of Go.

Bert (who was also on the Sun project here) is one of the top ten Go players in Colorado, and arguably one of the better non-asian players in the US. So he of course couldn't wait to visit a country where people play the game in cafes the way you might see chess matches in US coffee houses. He first played an older gentleman (shown in the picture) while a little kid occasionally looked on. Watching the kid watching the game, I thought, "Oh look how cute! That little boy is watching the grownups play..."

Turns out the kid was just sizing up the competition, because he then (through a translator) asked Bert for a game. The kid claimed to be a three-dan (a blackbelt level in Go), and Bert was pretty skeptical but agreed to play an even (no handicaps) game. (Note that the kid hasn't been alive for as long as it took Bert to reach a blackbelt level).

Game Result: Bert was toast. In a fairly quick game, the kid just demolished him. Bert took it pretty well ; )

And the coolest toy I came back with was an iDog, made by Sega, and just released in Japan (and sold out in most stores, but I managed to find one). The first thing I did was plug my iPod into him, and he starts dancing and doing a light show and moving his ears in time to the music. He's a kind of virtual pet where his mood changes depending on how you interact with him (or don't, which pisses him off). He's the most adorable (and least useful) iPod accessory I have. (Here's a little more on the iDog from engadget.com and another blogger.)