This is just… kinda sad. It’s one thing to cater to the wannabe-ninja crowd by selling outfits and weapons that are as historically-accurate as the katana from Highlander, but $140 for this is pure sucker-bait:

This hand forged Shuriken set is not only made according to Meifu Shinkage Ryu specs but also include a certificate of authenticity signed by Yasuyuki Otsuka himself, Soke of Meifu Shinkage Rryu.

We are also glad to present with this Shuriken Set our original and unique carry pouch. Made from durable canvas and double layered in the Shuriken tip area this pouch is perfect to carry the Shuriken to your Dojo.

At least if you buy these, you’ll be getting hand-made iron spikes that are good for something. And that won’t get you unpleasant attention from law-enforcement.

I understand the need to cater to the wannabe-* crowd. It’s hard to stay in business as a martial-arts supply store that only sells to serious students, and the high margins on goofy/cool-looking stuff pay the rent, much the way Gil Hibben’s multi-pronged fantasy knives used to.

(I should also note that I have nothing against the various “ninja” schools; apart from their historical claims and taste in weapons, they seem to be legitimate modern martial arts, and there’s nothing wrong with being modern. After all, while Judo was invented in 1884, it didn’t really spread until it was made part of the 20th-century middle-school phys-ed curriculum (along with a newly-standardized Kendo, and Naginata-do for girls), and Aikido and Karate came after WWI. In fact, the art that Aikido is based on, Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu, may have been invented about the same time as Judo, despite claims to a 900-year history)

Microsoft just demoed real-time translation in a Skype call. They wisely chose the relatively-compatible English and German languages for the demo, but there are so many ways it can go wrong even between such close cousins.

And when you think about expanding beyond the simplest cases, well, consider the following tray of meatballs:

Yes, I bought the Amazon Fire TV as soon as it was announced. It’s tiny, sleek, a pleasure to unpack and set up, and very responsive. I haven’t tried the optional game controller yet, but I did buy one, and you get a free game with it.

The voice search works quite well, in my limited testing. Sadly, while it correctly recognizes “Stargate SG-1”, it cannot directly navigate to “Stargate SG-1 Season 4 Episode 6”. Someday.

Also, it doesn’t appear that the Crunchyroll app has been ported yet, which means that the anime selection is mostly limited to dubs. I hadn’t realized how wretched the voice of Hermes was in the dub of Kino’s Journey.

[Update: I took it over to a friend’s house, and we couldn’t get any audio over HDMI, using two different cables. Works fine at my house, completely silent at his. We tried every option that was available on both his TV and the Fire TV, but no luck. I don’t see any mention of the problem anywhere yet, so it may be limited to a specific hardware configuration.]

A somewhat-belated follow-up to my earlier hanko braindump, here are two bits of ExtendScript (Javascript) for generating decent-looking square seals (kakuin) in Illustrator and then resizing them to see how they’d look at different sizes when sent off to an online dealer who has a laser engraver, CNC mill, or photopolymer (e.g. Brother) system.

The first, make-seal.jsx, takes a string of kanji/kana and formats it into a traditional-looking square or rectangular seal, with options for changing the font, spacing, etc. You need to have some sort of kanji fonts on your system, of course; the script goes looking for anything by DynaCom or Hakushu, and if all else fails, will let you use Meiryo and MS Mincho/Gothic. Overriding the font menu is on my to-do list, along with creating double borders and some other features used in real hand-carved seals.

The second script, seal-sizing.jsx, takes whatever artwork you have selected and creates a new document scaling it to various common seal sizes (by default, the ones offered by Inkan Honpo, who accepts Illustrator files directly; most dealers want black-and-white GIF/JPG). Useful for printing out and seeing how good your design really looks at different sizes, which is important for the seals I’m designing for some local martial-arts instructors.

For extra credit, here’s what I’m using to lightly distress the resulting seals, adjusting the outlines to look a bit less computer-generated. I’d save this as an Illustrator action, except that actions aren’t capable of recording everything any more, sigh.

1. Select/Object/Text Objects
2. Type/Create Outlines
3. Effect/Distort & Transform/Roughen...
   0.15%, 67/in, Smooth
4. Object/Expand Appearance
5. Object/Path/Simplify...
   96%
6. Select/Inverse
7. Effect/Distort & Transform/Roughen...
   0.2%, 83/in, Smooth
8. Object/Expand Appearance
9. Object/Path/Simplify...
   93%

(I could rant about how Illustrator CC for Windows forces the pixelAligned property for all RGB documents created in ExtendScript, or how ScriptUI windows are mis-sized on HiDPI displays, but I’ll save those for bug reports)

I have some notes on making round seals, but automating those in a way that looks half-decent is actual work.

[Update: because it amused me…]

One kilo of pure Sucralose powder, for ~$200.

This is either a lifetime supply, or a lifetime supply, much like the kilo of pure caffeine, which is about a hundred lethal doses.

Katana fast-draw competition timers, modeled on the sort of devices used in pistol competition.

I particularly like the fact that the scoring rules in the manual give a half-second penalty for splitting open your scabbard or bending your sword, but a two-second penalty for missing the target. Actually cutting yourself is a disqualification, at least, but This Will Not End Well.

Burning question: does anyone else wonder if this device will bring back the obsolete tech-slang term “glass ttys”? Judging from the users I’ve seen accidentally taking pictures and accidentally forwarding things to the wrong contacts, I figure it’s just a matter of time.

Why am I designing an artist’s chop for myself? Because, after assisting my Shinkendo instructor with getting proper seals made for the dojo, I found myself with fonts, templates, whimsy, and a web site that can turn an Illustrator file into a sturdy rubber seal. (they only ship domestically, but by some small coincidence, I’d recently updated my reshipping info at Tenso)

The font is Hakushu Tensho, the text reads 手掛 (“te-gakari” =“clue”), the color is Chinese Red, and the distressed effect is a quick Roughen/Expand/Simplify. The physical seal should be here sometime next week.

Side note: good fonts are pricy. I have a decent collection (read “shovelware CD”) of Japanese fonts from Dynaware, but Hakushu is one of the few foundries that makes a full line of professional old-fashioned fonts, and they charge professional prices. Fortunately, they offer free downloads of fonts containing just the grade-school kanji.

Actually buying their fonts is a bit tricky, because most places only sell them on CD, only take domestic credit cards, and only ship domestically. Amazon Japan does carry them, and if you’re lucky they’ll be in stock, but because font CDs are flagged as software, you have to use a reshipping service like Tenso. The only working source I’ve found for purchasing downloadable fonts is imagenavi; you have to be a bit creative fudging the address fields, but you can sign up for an account and use a non-Japanese credit card to buy things from them.

[Which reminds me: one of the many little adventures I had in Kyoto was helping my sister set up an account with Pizza-La so we could get dinner delivered to our hotel room. Worth the effort; I think we ordered the “Alsace-style Flambeed Onions and Bacon” pie three times. They actually have an English menu, but if you can’t read Japanese, placing an order is still tricky; she made it most of the way through the signup process with Chrome’s auto-translation, but got stuck when it insisted on having her enter her name in katakana.]