Photo album complete

It's done.  The project that has pervaded my life for 3 weeks now is finished.  Well, I'm calling it "finished" or else I'll never be able to put it down.  I remember listening to an interview with Cameron Moll, who said that there exists a point in design that we must call "finished," even though it's not finished and we could continue working indefinitely on perfecting it.  That point is somewhere between satisfaction and the point of diminishing returns, and I think I'm there.
Now it's on to more important work, like my thesis proposal.
Come stop by, take a look, let me know what you think. Give me feedback on what can be improved. I'll add it to my list of fixes, reserved for an undetermined date in the future - Phase 2.
BMV Photos

The purging and the soul

Recently I've realized that I need to organize my online life.  I have so many accounts in so many online services that I don't even remember where I am.  So the purging has begun.  I started with mybloglog and snapfish.  There will be many more to come.

In the meantime I am streamlining my online life by arranging each service into a certain function: web development stuff here, personal stuff there, networking stuff way, way over in the corner.  This will hopefully stop the scatter-brained and inefficient approach to "staying connected" (I'm falling out of love with that phrase... I think I was "over-connected" for a time).

I just cleaned my back porch today, to follow along with my online endeavors (I should have been doing my homework but ohwellitcanwait).  This cleaning and organizing is all part of a spiritual purge, in hopes of a tighter vision and more focused energy on tackling life.  After the cleansing of the porch (despite my nasal passages full of dust), I feel the effects already.

Online life in a nutshell:

• Batch IP Locator: my batch IP address geocoding test-site turned side-project that is garnering a respectible traffic, considering my marketing consists of a couple forum posts and a twitter account (112,755 geocodes as of this moment).  Some day I may opt to retool it to bring in some side cash, and it would then officially be my "business endeavor" (everyone's got to have one, right?).
• SnippetLib: since becoming obsessed with web design early last year, I've learned, then subsequently lost, tons of little snippets of code to achieve those most menial and mundane tasks that turn into a full-day of searching forums and head-banging-into-the-wall syndrome.  So I built a wordpress blog (first one, and I love it so far) and threw them all in there.  It has since transformed into my outlet for web development, which had been flowing into this xanghe blog and causing great confusion (for me).
• vietmap.info: bought this domain name 2 years ago with the intent of creating something great... still haven't started yet.  But eventually I'm thinking of a user-built database of Vietnamese stores and services.  I really don't like forgetting about the wonderful little bún shop at the corner of something and something street.  This would be my outlet for tinkering, if I ever get it off the ground.  (Note: google maps now has metropolis areas in Vietnam to the street level - I'm glad I waited, because all the good food in Vietnam are the mom-and-pop stalls!)
• benhamatake.com: I've come to terms with my ego.  Currently this domain redirects to this blog, but there's much in store for this one.
• Twitter: Random tweets.  That's about it.
• Flickr: Used to be the treasure trove of all our photos, but now my pro account has expired and we're putting the money into benhamatake.com.  It's still there with our photos, but only 7 sets.  We were sad enough about that to develop our own picture management application (coming soon).
• xanghe: The blog that started it all.  It really did, and has been the binding link between all of the above nonsense.  It's on the fourth re-design.  It started as a silly expression of Asian-American angst.  It has been the depository of all kinds of thoughts and news and superfluity, all coalescing into a barely-recognizable mess of me.  That's about to change.

Focus.  Energy.  Order.  That's my new call.  With all of the other online distractions I have going on, this will be the one that brings me back down to earth.  In this blog will I write the things of my soul.

2009 - A lesson in expectations

I felt an anticipation for 2009 right as Tết rolled around last year.  My wife felt it, too - it was a tangible expectation, like the thick, humid air before a storm - and we both were convinced that great things would happen in the following months.
Then... nothing.
I started school, then had to drop out, then started again.  Mai Vi started working a little more so our income rose a little.  I got a new bike.  She improved in managing all those little roudy Primary kids on Sundays.  Very mundane events, or long-time plans finally starting to materialize, but nothing that fit that strong anticipation we felt last spring.  I was slightly disappointed as Tết came and went this year and I did not feel the same anxious expectation, nor did I have anything to show for last year's.  Expectations have a way of skewing our view of the present, but I was honestly trying to determine why my anticipation had been so far off.
One night after an especially-introspective bike ride home from work I was struck with a prompting, an idea formulating that felt important but evasively vague.  It all started with wondering what to do with this blog, since I don't blog much anymore, but my thoughts lead me into much deeper issues.  Like smoke from the camp fire, every time I grasped too hard - or even looked too directly to get a glimpse of the actual shape and form - it vanished and I was left wanting.  Mai Vi went to bed, I stayed up doing homework and coding a project for a friend, while the ideas in my head slowly settled and finally grew silent.  I brushed my teeth, turned out the lights and knelt at my bed to pray.  Before my knees hit the floor I was back on my feet, head racing.
Lights on, pen lid off, old printout from last semester as my canvas, I scratched out the ephemeral thoughts even as they flitted away, no longer grasping for meaning but scrambling to manage the overflow of mental data.  They were neatly processed now, folded and starched and ready for consumption after my evening activities allowed them room to self-organize.  The past year made sense now, in the dim glow of my desk lamp, but it soon would not so I urgently disregarded spelling and grammar and any sense of order just to let these thoughts make their way to the paper before disappearing into a million ethereal pieces.
See, I grew up last year, and I'm still getting used to the rest of my life.
Here's my thoughts, as they are on the back of an old school printout:

Year of maturing - the prevailing theme - I felt it would be a big year but didn't have much to show for it except school - but I see now it's more of an internal progression, a growing up - xanghe represents the care free, blissful days of perpetual honeymoons - that phase has passed and it's now on with adult life - on the way home from work, I realized I'm approaching 30, which is not old, but it's too old to claim ignorance or innonence as I have been doing - recently I told my younger brother to be a man, but was I projecting? - over the years, xanghe has transformed from a silly nickname to a symbol of my continual search for meaning, depicted by the ubiquitous bee - time has passed for me to claim xanghe as my alias, but it will remain a reminder of my search - it's time to be a man

The future of online mapping... is Here!

I stumbled on Blaise Aguera y Arcas' TED talk (which led to this talk) from Cameron Moll's twitter feed which opened up to me the world of Seadragon, Photosynth, and the new Bing maps.  I guess I've been neglecting Microsoft to my own detriment.
Let's look at Seadragon, which revolutionizes the concept of image browsing, allowing users to pan and zoom hi-res iamges as easily and smoothly as they do an online map.  I remember seeing an application that used the Google Maps interface to pan and zoom large photos, which I thought was really ingenious but it looked like it only garnered a niche following if that.  Now the concept has gone mainstream under Arcas' touch at MS and the result is stunning.  Here's an example of Yosemite.  You'll need Silverlight to view it, but it's worth it (and I never advocate downloading non-standard components, but this is an exception).
The future is here.  We as internet community contributors, sharing our thoughts and images and lives with a global community, are more and more able to recreate our experiences online to share with the world (and not through VR fluff which doesn't count because the idea is to escape reality in those games).  Some call it augmented reality.  I call it the reality, because that's the direction our world is heading.  

Bánh?

Bánh is one of those ubiquitous food terms in Vietnamese that seems to classify anything that is not soup. A look in the dictionary shows us that bánh can mean "cake" (for this discussion we'll skip the fact that bánh also means wheel), but this doesn't quite describe the sticky, translucent goo that is bánh bột lọc or the crisp, crepe-like heaven that is bánh xèo. Add a little suffix denoting an association with grain and you get bánh mì, the famous Vietnamese-French baguette that can be eaten stuffed with meat, cilantro and pickled carrots, dipped in sweetened condensed milk for a quick fix, or just enjoyed alone, as long as it's piping hot out of the oven.

I have yet to find a concrete description to encompass all forms of bánh, and maybe the Vietnamese language is not meant for that anyway. Context is the strongest factor in determining a word's meaning, whether "Anh nhớ lấy bánh nha!" means to remember the bread, remember the glutinous rice cake, or remember to pick up a wheel on my way home.

For a long list of possible bánh concoctions, take a look at the search results at vdict.com for "bánh" (caution, this site has been known to display scandalous ads, darn them!), and definitely pay a visit to the Banh Guide, a webpage I found today (hence this post) that gives a nice description in English of several types of bánh.

And now I'm hungry.

Annual Update

I think this blog is becoming an annual update thing for me.  Even blogger has changed its interface since I posted last.  I'm way behind.  So here's my conglomerate blog post for the last year.

Starting school again has taught me the value of time.  It's priceless.  If anyone's selling some good ol' fashion time, please let me know.  I'll buy it immediately because I've used all of mine.

Music has once again saved me from complete ruin.  I think the only thing that keeps me sane is an occasional good hour with my guitar.  This year yielded two or three ok songs, after a dearth of several years, so I'm happy.

All of my goals for 2009 are still on the shelf, but I have accomplished some things earlier than I thought I could (like get a paying website project).


God is still prompt as always to answer my prayers, and I'm still slow as always to ask.  But I'm learning, or trying to.

I teach youth sunday school again and I love it. 

Top 50 Common Vietnamese Surnames

UPDATE 2018-09-22: Links to my Master's thesis (the "project" mentioned below) are here:

Spatial Little Saigon: Mapping an ethnic community, Hamatake, Ben, M.A., CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON, 2014, 72 pages

Spatial Little Saigon: Mapping an ethnic community, Map Appendices

I'm doing some research for a project at school and ran into this tidbit. Thought I'd share:

1. Nguyễn


2. Trần


3. Lê


4. Phạm


5. Huỳnh


6. Vũ


7. Phan


8. Trương


9. Hoàng


10. Ngô


11. Đặng


12. Đỗ


13. Bùi


14. Võ


15. Lý


16. Dương


17. Lương


18. Đinh


19. Trịnh


20. Lưu


21. Đoàn


22. Đào


23. Thái


24. Mai


25. Văn


26. Cao


27. Vương


28. Phùng


29. Quách


30. Tạ


31. Diệp


32. Tôn


33. La


34. Thạch


35. Thi


36. Thanh


37. Đàm


38. Vong


39. Triệu


40. Bưu


41. Phú


42. Vĩnh


43. Quang


44. Tiều


45. Hòa


46. Trang


47. Giang


48. Lục


49. Bành


50. Nghiêm

Wikipedia has a nice post on Vietnamese surnames, but they're not all in order. I added the tones so they might be off. Let me know if I muffed your last name! I'll fix it.
This list is used by the US Department of Justice and is based on several sources:
Abrahamse A. F., Morrison, P. A. & Bolton, N. M. (1994). Population Research and Policy Review: 13 383-398.
Barringer, H. R., Gardner, R. W. & Levin, M.J. (1993). Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The Population of the United States in the 1980s.
Buechley, R. W. (1976). Generally useful ethnic search system: GUESS. University of New Mexico, Cancer Research and Treatment Cetner (mimeo).
Choi, B. C. K., Hanley, A. J., Holowaty, E. J. & Dale, D. (1993). American Journal of Epidemiology 138: 723-734
Kuo, J. & Porter, K. (1998). Health status of Asian Americans: United States, 1992-1994.

15 days to the 2009 Shakeout!

15 Days to the 2009 ShakeOut! Dear Participant, At 10:15 a.m. on October 15, 2009, millions of Californians will “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” in The Great California ShakeOut, the largest earthquake drill ever! September is National Preparedness Month, and you'll be hearing from many organizations about how to update your disaster plans and restock your disaster supplies kits. It's also time to register for the 2009 ShakeOut! If you participated in the 2008 drill or not, this is your once-a-year chance to practice how to be safe during earthquakes: Drop, Cover, and Hold On. Over 5.4 million southern Californians participated in the 2008 ShakeOut. As a statewide drill in 2009, this number could be doubled... but we can only include if you register at www.ShakeOut.org/register. As of August 31, over 3.7 million participants are registered statewide! There are many ways to participate in the ShakeOut in 2009. At the least, plan a "drop, cover, and hold on" drill involving everyone in your household. You can also discuss your overall disaster plan with your family or roommates, secure the contents of your home so they won't fall, and restock your supplies. The updated ShakeOut.org website is the central source of information for how to participate, learn about your area's earthquake hazards, and find local events, news, and participant lists for all California counties. Everyone can participate! Individuals, families, businesses, schools, government agencies and organizations are all invited to register. Talk to your employer, neighborhood association, faith-based organization, or others about registering as well. Your involvement in the ShakeOut insprires many others to register and hold their own drills! Register today at ShakeOut.org

Batch IP Locator - New Home

Ok, just wanted to announce that my little project has a new home (because the other one is about to expire):

Batch IP Locator
Geocode or map multiple IP addresses - free

Batch IP Locator - Official Launch

A week or so ago, I launched the very-beta version of a new app I'm working on. Today is the "official" launch of a greatly-improved product. After a week of poring over code and markup, the back-end has been revamped, UI is more functional (and looks better, too!), and an API has been added (with documentation). Now I just need to add content. Ugh. Not what I want to do after a week of coding. If I can get homework done early I'll shoot for that at the end of this week.

Stop by and visit, and leave me your thoughts (feedback) on what needs improvement:

Batch IP Locator ~ Geocode and map multiple IP Addresses - free!

ps. I made a new twitter account for it, too. lol