Otaku of the West Are Japanophiles (satire)

That conservative Westerners don't get Japanese culture might explain why they and their counterparts in Japan want to ban lolicon and that anime where a 12-yr old boy cross-dresses to please his older sempai.

Yeah, yeah, I know calling the pedophile older man "sempai" is totally unacceptable. The closest I can get to what the old guy might be is by referring to him as Oji-sama (honored uncle), but that's disrespectful of Japanese culture. Even if he added the honorific, -chan, to the boy's name, it's more likely he would also add -kun to his name when doing the ritual master-disciple routine.

Am I suggesting that Japanese society is run like that? No, only the arch conservative parts of Japanese society are run exactly like that. Though a yakuza member would view his boss as "oyabun" and the boss would consider his underlings "kobun", which is a highly ritualized and symbolic master-disciple relationship which younger members of a group (disciples) defer to the leader of their group (the master). Considering their sense of justice, they would deal with pedophiles harshly.

However the oyabun/kobun relationship between a master and his disciples is based on sociopolitical structures common throughout most of East Asia.

Due to the ignorance about Asian culture, the West does not get the master-disciple shtick at all. So when Obama accidentally bowed too low to the Emperor of Japan, the American right wing conservatives went ballistic, crying that "American does not submit to any nation, not even the conquered nation of Japan."

Talk about misreading the situation.

Even though America honestly admits to its economic imperialism before, during and after World War 2, it's never going to submit to Japan, even though some of us in the West love their anime and culture.

As far as nation-states are concerned, all of them are created equal, though some countries are more equal than others. ;)

Even so, otaku of the West who love anime and manga are not traitors of the West. All we are are people who live, breathe and eat Japanese culture.

I should talk though. I sure love me cod and chips.

---

Originally posted on Jun 19, 2014 at 5:22 PM PDT

Reference:

Otaku: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku

Lolicon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolicon

K=Yakuza: organization and activities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza#Organization_and_activities

Sociopolitical organization among East Asians: http://www.everyculture.com/North-America/East-Asians-of-Canada-Sociopolitical-Organization.html

Presidential Bows, Revisited: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/presidential-bows-revisited/comment-page-3/?apage=4&_r=0

American imperialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism

Dual Video, Dual Monitor Project (satire)

Disclaimer: Everything discussed in this article is presented as-is as a treat for fellow computer hobbyists. By publishing it, I make no endorsement of any code contained or Linux application working on your specific Linux computer system. Nor do I advocate adding a second monitor and video card or more without carefully thinking through everything before preceding.

Note to anyone wishing to take up computers as a hobby: this article is an exposé of the past two day the project as entitled in the header above. I would rate it as overly complex, considering that I did not include full files. However, there is a picture below to show the result of what I started almost ten days ago.

After posting this blog entry to GooglePlus, it may be subject to editing to remove any spelling mistakes or syntax errors. YMMV

Update: 20150202.0055H PST

Here are the promises pictures of my completed Dual Monitor Project:

---

Since January 23, 2015, I have put together a dual monitor computer system.

Here are the specifications on the PC: It's a HP dc5000 SFF(PB480A) with Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz, 4 GB of RAM and 250 GB HDD.

For video it uses a 82865G as display controller integrated with the motherboard. What this means is that the 82465G provides a VGA output from the motherboard to hook up to a Samsung LCD monitor. I also added a second video card with VGA output, which is a 3D Rage IIC PCI [Mach64 GT IIC]. It also hooks up to an IBM LCD monitor.

After adding the IBM 1024x768 monitor and the Mach64 video card by putting the video card in the appropriate slot and screwing it in, I configured a new xorg.conf, following the instructions in the manual found by executing the following command:

$ man xorg

It led me to this command:

$ xorg -configure

When you run xorg with the -configure option, it creates the xorg configuration file, xorg.conf.

Next I edited the file until I got it to run both cards.

Here are some excerpts from xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

...

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor IBM"
ModelName "Monitor Model L150"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor Samsung"
ModelName "Monitor Model SyncMaster740N"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card1"
Driver "mach64"
BusID "PCI:5:4:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "intel"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

...

The file xorg.conf is moved to the folder /etc/ using the sudo command to give me temporary super-user powers:

$ sudo mv xorg.conf /etc/xorg.conf

Afterwards, any corrections to it need super-user powers.


Since the Samsung monitor has the dimensions of 1280x1024 and the IBM monitor, 1024x768, they got set up after a reboot as Screen0 (Monitor0) and Screen1 (Monitor1). Card0 (the onboard Intel video controller) is attached to Monitor0 and Card1 (the Mach64 VGA PCI card), to Monitor1.

Respectively the output to Monitor0 is called Screen0 and the output to Monitor1, Screen1.

Overall, here are the dimensions of the master Screen0 and its slave Screen1:
$ xrandr --screen 0
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 2048 x 2048
VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
1280x1024 60.02 + 75.02*
1280x960 60.00
1152x864 75.00
1024x768 75.08 70.07 60.00
832x624 74.55
800x600 72.19 75.00 60.32 56.25
640x480 75.00 72.81 66.67 60.00
720x400 70.08

$ xrandr --screen 1
Screen 1: minimum 1024 x 768, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768

Originally, Screen1 would not work.

Specifically after boot up, the enable flag contains a 0. I figured that the enable flag need to be toggled from 0 to 1.

So I created a file called enable-video to fix the problem:

$ cat bin/enable-video
#!/bin/sh -e
#
# enable second video card
echo "1" > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:05\:04.0/enable

The above command puts a 1 into the enable flag, turning on the device.

As you will note, the BusID "PCI:5:4:0" corresponds the device on the pci bus known as "0000:05:04.0".

This solution worked, but it eventually would get time consuming to boot up Linux, wait until Screen0 came up, run enable-video in a command-line window, and pkill X in super-user mode.

So after a couple days of searching, I decided on placing it in /etc/rc.local. In order to implement this decision, I copied the enable-video file to the folder /usr/local/sbin which is where all user-created system files go.

Then the following two lines went into /etc/rc.local, a line above the 'exit 0'.

# enable screen1
enable-video


This worked for a little while, but I now ran into the blank screen problem. The system would boot up but halfway through, the system would get confused and only enabled Screen1, all 1024x768 of it as Screen 0.

So, before the enable-video command, I placed the following command to remove the framebuffer:

# remove framebuffer
setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=00

No change occurred. Screen1 lights up. No Screen0.

So I researched this problem with the help of Google Search, and came across the suggestion to update the file grub.cfg
in the folder /boot/grub.

All this meant was changing the file's contents for the first image of Linux to boot until thing worked. Then the next thing to do was to implement the change using /etc/default/grub.

/etc/default$ cat grub
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`echo CrunchBang`
*GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet i915.modeset=1"*
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"


That is it: set the mode to 1 for i915.

Then I ran update-grub in super-user mode.

At this point all the hard stuff is finish, and it took about two days to get to this point.

Since partially upgrading to Debian Jessie, a favorite highly configurable system monitor called conky broke. This means the usual startup sequence got changed because conky is not an essential part of Linux.

So as a workaround, it's placed at the end of the file .profile in my user account home directory at "~".

# Since upgrading to Debian Jessie, conky is broken and does not
# run after logging into the system. So run the appropriate tool.

# Detect Screen 1 and redirect to display to it
scrn=$(xrandr --screen 1|cut -d " " -f 1)
if [ "$scrn"=="Screen" ]; then
DISPLAY=":0.1"
fi
conkywonky

Just to work in a dual monitor system like mine, I put in the four lines of BASH code to check if Screen1 is enabled, and temporarily create DISPLAY so conkywonky runs for Screen1. The command DISPLAY=":0.1" helps redirect video data to Screen1. "0.1" is Xwindows speak for Screen1.

Unfortunately, it may be harder to run HTOP, an application used to monitor all processes on my computer in real time on Screen1 due to the fact that it is an Xserver savvy app.

New Age Guru Helping the People of the Ghettos and Inner City: a Meditation on Addiction, Meditation and Otaku (satire)

"That's the goal now," he says, "to spread into the ghettos and inner cities."

Deepak Chopra has ventured to Harlem, N.Y., and Reno, Nev., talking to blacks, Latinos and Asians about people being rivers of energy. He tells them their mind is wired into every cell of their body, that nasal breathing techniques can effect brain activity, that ayurvedic herbs can pack as much punch as any drug.

How does Chopra think it's going so far? What do city folk make of his New Age wisdom?

"They say, 'Deep stuff!'"

This is the challenge for rehabilitation centres for addictions: to convince drug addicts and especially alcoholics that the inner energy of meditation is a high higher than any known drug that they got their hands on.

Yet addicts are well known for their ability to detect BS if and only if they have been totally honest with themselves that their addictions are not due to "bad parenting", but their rebellion against the basic social rules that govern our very lives.

While they may do so because of the unwillingness to live by the rules society imposes on us all, addicts pay a price for their so-called freedom, a freedom that is an illusion behind which a licentious lifestyle crumbles into the abyss of darkness that so many addicts face due to abuse of their freedom to choose.

However, meditation will work for anyone who meditates due to their willingness to cut through their own BS, of which the main one concerns their so-called ability to detect BS in people wiser than they are.

In short, they have to also cut through the white lies that society imposes on us all to create working communities, and accept that they are completely different in their use from lies, both blatant and subtle, that actually destroy communities.

For example, if a friend I just met asked me what I did on last Friday, then if I wanted to remain discreet, I could merely say "I went on an errand", and changing the topic, rather than being candid about paying my bills since my Fridays are my paydays.

In contrast, I am usually candid with my roommates and my best friend because they are in my inner circle of friends, and not someone I met off the street.

Although I admitted to how I spend my Fridays in the course of my argument, I will not reveal details because they are personal facts that are private and are known only to me, my employer, my bank and the government through their tax department.

Regarding bills I pay, I will only be candid about debt collectors due to the fact that they consistently tell white lies in order to obtain a lot of money right now (preferably over $100 a month but far less than what I owe Fido and Rogers Mobility) in a short period of time (usually within 48 hours but that could be negotiated).

I am mentioning this because of my addiction to technology - and it is evidenced by the late hour spent writing this article.

By being this candid, I hope to share the word that meditation works. If I didn't put positive effort into meditating on my debt, then I would still be in denial and the debt would not get paid.

Therefore, in my mind, I am a recovering addict with an addiction that no one else takes seriously except myself.

I think in Japan, they call people like that "otaku", though in the West, otaku are great for information content but lousy on emotional affect.

However, there is some overlap between addiction and the collections of knowledge and experience of otaku, even though otaku are likely to chew me out for "labeling" their intense love for technology or even works of art as "addiction."

Overall though, we otaku could be so gung-ho about anime and manga, why not meditation too? For the most gentle of meditation is combined in many therapeutic settings, and is borrowed from Asian sources more so than Western sources.

Though I will say that even me blogging online is therapy. It is also a form of vipassana meditation when I focus on cutting through the initial negativity toward the positive outcome.

If anything that I have written confuses you, then you are not ready to truly free yourself of your addiction and become a true otaku who is essentially free of whatever he obsesses over.

How dos you tell when that happens? When you can go to a convention, a group therapy session, or even a family reunion to help friends and family get to know you well, that is a start.

Another sign that you are otaku is that you vacillate in your writing between first-person (I and me among similar pronouns), second-person (you and the names of people), and third-person (they, them, and often one or it).

Returning to the quote from an anti-cult website, I can certainly support the use of meditation techniques. However, that quote is not a product endorsement of Chopra since it has been taken out of context for me to promote meditation on my terms, which I am free to do.

I am merely selling the idea that otaku are harmless when they become more socialized with fellow otaku. As well, any obsession that leads to social isolation on the long run really is worth the effort of abstaining.

As for addiction, that is only when your lifestyle is negative affected by your obsessions e.g. you spend more time watching anime than socializing with friends, using excuses to avoid brushing up on your social skills.

Anyway, I am not proud to be otaku, nor am I ashamed to be otaku. Otaku is a neutral word in the West, yet is misused by lazy Japanese journalists who turned it into a badge of shame.

Yet even journalists are closet otakus as pararazzi when they obsess about celebrities such as Morning Musume and stalk them.

Finally, the ultimate freedom is to use less technology in the public sphere, and to occasionally use technology. First, one day dedicated to using your smartphones less and your senses more, including using the mind to ask questions about matters other than technology.

---

Originally written on May 10, 2005 at 2310H PDT

Reference:


http://www.rickross.com/reference/deepakchopra/deepakchopra20.html

An Otaku View of Mormon (satire)

At the temple yesterday I remember explaining the difference between -sama and -kun to a fellow Japanese Mormon, who's been a Mormon for over 40 years.

I also kidded him and said he'd be like my sempai since this is my third time at the temple.

Even so, the only thing that "got" me was Mormon cosmology, which is almost like Buddhist cosmology except it skips the Six Realms of Desire and the Pure Lands, and presents this false concept of immortality.

This is why I think of eternity as a finite time period of an exceedingly long length, and immortality as a life of an exceedingly long length that still will end when a person is reborn in a new realm --- because if God was once man in a previous life, then a person who might become a god in the next, might again be reborn in a new realm.

If the above is confusing, it appears being born again might be a part of a long cycle of rebirth.

I'm not sure if not desiring to get into the priesthood as a way to break that cycle is something I'd share with the pair of elders, though.

Sometimes I think my adventures with the Mormons would make a great manga. However, I am more interested in turning the cosmology into manga.

Dai Nippon (poem)

From Kyushu to Shikoku to Honshu and Yezo, the greatest Japanophile knows much about Hello Kitty, Manga, Anime, Akira, Morning Musumé, Ran, Sukiyaki, Enka, and the Meiji era.

Otaku in Japan are his best friends, and ever beautiful are the cherry blossoms of the fourth month.

That's because he's a great admirer of Japan.

A heartfelt thanks!
和訳 (Japanese Translation)
九州から四国へ本州とエゾに最大の親日家は、ハローキティ、マンガ、アニメ、アキラ、モーニング娘、蘭、すきやき、演歌、そして明治時代について多くを知っています。

日本でのオタクは、彼の親友であり、今までに美しい四月の桜です。

彼は日本の偉大な崇拝者だからだ。

私の肝臓の底からありがとうございます！
Romaji
Kyūshū kara Shikoku e Honshū to ezo ni saidai no shin'nichi-ka wa, harōkiti, manga, anime, Akira, mōningu musume, ran, suki yaki, enka, soshite Meiji jidai ni tsuite ōku o shitte imasu. Nihon de no otaku wa, kare no shin'yūdeari, ima made ni utsukushī 4gatsu no sakuradesu. Kare wa Nihon no idaina sūhai-shadakarada.

Watashi no kanzō no soko kara arigatōgozaimasu!

Hikikomori who act out their violent fantasies may be influenced by a continuum of horror films

One significent factor in social isolation is the amount of time devoted to obsession about a single interest. Usually for males, it may consist of pornography, and for sociopathic predation, it has to be violent pornography. Horror films can be considered soft-corn "porn" since sometimes gratuitous sex and sexualization of gratuitous violence occurs. Thus it is not abnormal for breasts to be exposed in certain horror films. As well, violent pornography is merely hardcore adult horror.

Therefore, the continuum of horror ranges from classical to adult violent i.e. classical to violent pornography.

The viewer may fantasize revenge on his former oppressers, who may have bullied or teased him in childhood. Both horror films and violent pornography may fuel this obsession.

What this indicates is that such viewing of violent films need to be monitored since a fan who is social isolated may mistake fantasy for reality, and try to act out what he sees on the screen.

IMHO video rental places who refuse to monitor their creepier clients' viewing habits are as morally reprehensible as drinking establishments who pickle the gills of their patrons to the point of alcohlism.

As well, hikikomori is not unique to Japan.

The etiology for some serial killers consists of the triad of bedwetting, torture of pets and small animals, and arson. As well, in the case of socially isolated individuals, which is often a given for this class of serial killer, it also includes collecting violent pornography - both movies and anime - and classic horror films.

As well, social isolation and the violent porn, including that in some classical horror films, are symptoms of an underlying personality disorder which has its roots in childhood, possibly due to bullying and teasing in childhood, isolation from one or both parents due to their depression or other psychiatric condition (alcoholism, drug abuse, or personality disorder).

No culture is immune to hikikomori-like symptoms of an underlying personality disorder and its comorbidity with a mood disorder. In certain cultures, a culture of shame implies depression to be inherent. As well, depression may have some types of psychoses present. When depression becomes chronic, bipolar disorder may arise with schizotypal impact on the personality.

However, it does not follow that mental illness will result in acting out of violent fantasies. Psychoses with physical acting out requires some indication of child abuse to be present, whether that is by beatings by a parent or a school mate.

A person with a psychosis will only use violence if violence has been used against it. No one spontaneously harms another person without someone previously harming that person.

Thus, a serial killer "learns" to use violence to meet his perverse needs.

In most cases of violence by socially isolated people, child abuse is a significent factor in the etiology of their personality disorder which always has asocial personality disorder as the predominant disorder. The antisocial personality disorder becomes comorbid when they act hostile (antisocial) towards other people, and some schizotypies are present, but not enough to confirm schizophrenia.

And yes, it is possible to have difficulty communicating, have confused thinking, and some psychotic symptoms without schizophrenia since it is the social isolation that is both symptom and causal agent of these dysfunctions.

So, if you look at the serial murderers of Japan and the recent stabbing incidents, both in March and the beginning of June, one of the factors in the etiology of all the perpetrators is child abuse, be it by parents or even classmate bullying and teasing.

Violence also tends to occur first during the teenaged years.

Therefore, bullying and teasing in school, child abuse and disrespectful behavior of parents towards their children, are all roots of future violence in adolescence and adulthood.