Google's playable version of Pac-Man

We all know that Google changes its 'appearance' on certain special days, such as Christmas.

This time ,Google celebrated the 30th anniversary of this arcade game called "Pac-Man" by changing its logo to a playable version of Pac-Mac last Friday (5/21).

The layout of the maze spelled out the word Google and also by pressing the insert coin button, Ms. Pac-Man (control with W,A,S,D) will appear and you could play both characters simultaneously. After you finish the game, Google then lead you to Pac-Man's 30th anniversary search page. 

Google originally planned to remove it back to the classic Google search logo after two days or so, but it turned out to be incredibly popular, that even people around the world spend almost five million man-hours playing it (I contributed some amount as well :) ). As a result, Google decided to keep this entertaining page forever. 

http://www.google.com/pacman/ (check out and play!)

Take control of your finance today!

a sample picture of iXpenseIt.

I want to introduce an amazingly useful application on ipod touch/ iphone.

With iXpenseIt, you can simply record your income and expense anytime you want- don't need to bother with the paper work anymore!

What I found it's handy is that it can switch to any currency, and immediately shows you how much money you have left until the end of this month (if you set a budget line). It can also transfer these records into pie-graphs or bars.

After using this for the first two months, I realized that I can handle my monthly budget better. :)

Link to this app (US) (JP) !

Japan - The Strange Country

This is an amazing video about Japan from a perspective of foreigner, but the creator himself is actually a Japanese designer- Kenichi Tanaka.

Video description by Tanaka:
"This is my final thesis project. I created info-graphic, motion piece. My objective is to make Japanese people to think about that everything happening here in Japan, isn't that normal. So I created this video from foreigner's point of view, rather than Japanese people's point of view. By the way, please don't call me racist, because I am one of short, small eyes Japanese ;P "



I love the way Tanaka designed the whole clip with graphs and data which are easy to follow. It's very entertaining, but also made me (as a foreigner) understand this country more. Although I think Tanaka focused too much on the negative sides... that might make this video appear to be offensive to his fellow countryman. Otherwise, I really like this video!

Here's Kenichi Tanaka's blog: http://kenichi-design.blogspot.com/

Update: I just found out that the English ver. does not contain the entire clip, so if you want to watch the very end of this short movie, check this out in Japanese. :)


Japan - The Strange Country (Japanese ver.) from Kenichi on Vimeo.

The Grande at Starbucks to buy!

The Grande at Starbucks to buy!

I haven't had a chance to dig into business and economic news recently, so I'd like to recommend a book which talks about the philosophy of business: The Grande at Starbucks to buy! (スタバではグランデを買え! ―価格と生活の経済学) written by Yoshimoto Yoshio.

It's a book for beginners of economics, and the content is fairly easy to follow because it discusses the examples which we will face in our everyday life. For instance,  issues such as whether to buy a bottle of tea at a convenience store or a supermarket;  why does the price of  TVs, digital cameras and DVDs become cheaper gradually; the myths about the complicated plans of cell-phone; which size of coffee to buy at Starbucks is better;  the secret of 100 yen shop.....and more.

I'd like to demonstrate one of the idea about in this book:
Should we buy a bottle of tea at a convenience store or a supermarket?
 
The reason for selling the exact same thing with different prices is the difference of the transaction cost between a supermarket and a convenience store (or a vending machine).
Why do people buy a 150 yen bottle of tea from a vending machine in front of the supermarket when they can get a 98 ten bottle of tea from the supermarket?

Well, here are the reasons...
1. If you are in a rush, and the line of the checkouts is very long....then you'd probably buy your drink from the vending machine.
2. Even though there are not many customers in the supermarkets, you'd prefer to buy your drink from the vending machine if you are in a rush.
3. You might feel embarrassed of buying only a 98 yen drink at the supermarket.
4. You feel lazy to go into the supermarket and look for your drink.

Many reasons, right?
For you, these reasons serve as the transaction cost. That's why there are still a lot of people buying drinks and products from vending machines and convenience stores.In other words, by reducing the transaction costs of the customers without lowering the actual prices, shops still can attract customers to purchase. In fact, this makes better profits for the shops.

It's a pity that there's no English translation of this book (though I read it in Chinese!), but please check out more details here.

Is ECFA a helper or a killer to Taiwan's economy?

The issue of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) has been discussed in everyday news recently in Taiwan. Though, the TVs and the news are talking about it, many people (well, my friends) seem that they don't exaclty know what ECFA is about.

I searched on wiki in order to get a background information:

"Taiwan needs to remain globally competitive in the face of globalization and the signing of FTAsAustralia, the ASEAN bloc, Japan, South Korea and mainland China. The political status of Taiwan prevents it from signing FTAs with neighboring economic powers."

(original source from wiki)


ECFA is the aggrement about reducing tariff between Taiwan and mainland China. The main purpose is to expand the export market, to create more opportunities of employment, and to promote the economic prosperity in Taiwan.

President of Taiwan, Ma Ying-Jeou

On April 25, there was a televised debate about ECFA and related issues (such as the intense political issue with mainland China) held between President of Taiwan, also as a chairman of Nationalist Party, Ma Ying-Jeou, and the chairwoman of Democratic Progressive Party, Tsai Ing-Wen. President Ma has stated that Taiwan must sign ECFA to prevent it from being marginalized in the ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region. Tsai considered that signing ECFA would only make economy in Taiwan even worse, and might bring up political issues with mainland China. (Here is an article in English about the debate.)

I've watched this 142 minutes debate on youtube during the golden week. Although President Ma had been very persuasive on his speech, he did not think about that signing a free trade agreement with only "one nation" (mainland china), is also bringing Taiwan to marginalization. (Due to the fact that Taiwan could not join FTA is because of mainland China...) On the other hand, if the government does nothing about it, Taiwan would probably lose its economic status in the wold soon.

If ECFA is signed, will Taiwan lose its right of anti-dumping to China?
Due to the principle of reciprocity in WTO, China could asks Taiwan to import China's Crops without tariff as well.

After Mexico signed NAFTA(North American Free Trade Agreement) with the United States, 1,300,000 peasants in Mexico lost their jobs, 7,500 enterprises went bankrupt.

Will Taiwan become the second Mexico? 

(ECFA will be finalized and signed presently sometime in June, 2010.)