A car accident : hitting a box on highway

I wrote this post for those who unfortunately are involved in car accidents first time and who don't know what to do and how to deal with it. Nobody wants to be involved in car accidents, but we could be involved even though you drive your car carefully because it's human to human society on roads and it can cause crashes as same as it is in your life. I was involved in a car accident so far once in California, therefore, I can understand how insecure, concerned, and scare peoples feel. So let me tell you my case today. I would be happy if it could help someone feel good and know what to do from the beginning to the end. I would appreciate you if you read this as one of example of what to do. 

It was night of Thanksgiving day around 8pm. I left home for a shopping mall which is one hour drive away and was supposed to start a big sale from 9pm. When I got on highway near my apartment, there was a car on the same line which looked like a pick-up truck although it's was hard to recognize its proper type of car because it's dark night and I kept safe distance. At one time, I saw something dropped off from the truck, but what I could see for sure was a huge plastic back and it was flying toward a right shoulder, so I thought that It did not matter and there was no chance that I could hit the bag. A few second later, a huge box came out in front of my car and it was too late to avoid it. Finally I hit it unfortunately with big sound like "Ban!!". I was shocked but I could manage to think that I could run my car somehow by judging from a little noise from my car and I pulled over my car at the right shoulder. I also could see the truck run away unfortunately even though the driver might recognize that he or she dropped off something because I could see brake lamp of the car after dropping off something. I got out of my car carefully and looked at the damage. The right front body was damaged and bent, and the right front light was completely broken. Although this was turned out later, I could not turn left because my right front tire was touching the bend body when I tried to turn left. When I pulled over my car, I noticed that someone behind my car kindly pulled over his car to make sure whether I was fine or not. He said to me that what I hit was a huge wooden box and it was broken and pushed toward the right shoulder. I was shocked and my heart was beating hard but I could know what to do before he went away . What I did was to ask him his phone number and ask him to tell what he saw when my insurance company contact him as a witness. He kindly said yes and went away while saying "drive carefully and take care !". At that time, I thought that I should get out of the highway because it was very dangerous to stay there because someone might hit the remaining part of box on the road and cause  second accident. Fortunately, it was close to my house and I knew where I could park my car close to the exit of the highway. As soon as I parked my car at a parking lot of Japanese supermarket, I tried to call my insurance company. I kept insurance documents about what to do in case of car accidents inside space in front of passenger sheet, so I tried to find a phone number which I should call at, but it was first day of long holiday, and I figured out that my specific insurance company was closed and a emergency call center was open. I called at the call center actually and told everything about my insurance information and about my car accident information, and a person in the call center told me that a person in charge of my accident case would contact me at the early following week. Next I called at 911 of police. When I told that it was a car accident, a person in the call center of 911 connected me to the California highway patrol (CHP). Like what I told to the emergency call center of my insurance company, I told everything about what I knew to a person of the CHP. A person asked me whether I need a collision report or not, and I needed it so the person asked where I parked my car and stay there until a police car arrives. A collision report is a report which police makes to make sure that there is a accident, and a insurance company would contact a police station about its report to make sure that it is real accident in order to avoid car accident scams. I waited for more than 40 minites, but nobody came and I wanted go to a restroom so I called at 911 and asked them if I could go home and stay there, then a person at the call said that Thanksgiving night is usually busy and they deal with case in high priority order and my case is low priority so it would take time to get me so I could go back home and wait at my apartment. Police guys finally came to me around 12:30am and I told them everything again. They gave a collision report card to me with several important numbers printed there. It was Thursday night so I had to wait for more that 3 days until I could expect to be contacte by the person in charge. For these 3 days, I felt longest time for which I had ever felt so far. At the following Monday, there was no contact from my insurance company actually and I got a phone call from a person in charge at the morning at the following Tuesday. He told me to take my car to a body shop close to my house where he searched and make a reservation of a rent car. So I called the body shop and asked a tow service of my car from my apartment to the body shop because my car could not turn left. Towing service fee and rent car fee were covered by my insurance, although rent car fee was limited to be $30 per day. In the body, I asked a person in charge how long it could be expected to be fixed from his experience, then he said that it would take a few weeks at least due to supplies of parts. After this, communication about car fixing had been done between the body shop and my insurance company until my car was fixed and the guy in the body shop update information to me regularly by phone call. A week later, my insurance company sent letters to me, and one of them described that my responsibility was zero percent and the insurance company could cover 100% other than deductible money. Another one was a letter to ask to write about the car accident and send it back. Finally I got my car back 3 weeks later and it amazingly costed more that $8,000 for fixing. According to the body shop, they did not use third parts and use same parts with my car so it costed so much. It did not matter for me because I paid only $250 of deductible.  

Let me summarize what I did.

1. Aks my witness a phone number
1. Call my insurance company (a emergency call center)
2. Call 911 and ask them to make a collision report 
3. Take my car to the specified body shop and get a rent car
4. Do a paper work
5. Get my car back

A list looks like simple but it takes a few week to complete a list and needed patient and I suffered from much stress because I did not know what to do in a foreign country. It would bad been easier if it have been at my home county.

If I think this positively, I could learn a lot and grow up by one step.

Political and Religious talk

I have one thing which I have wanted to tell and made clear. It's about content of talk which I had heard I should not talk with peoples in foreign countries. Before I came to U.S, I had a guidance about living there. That's one of them and I have heard that these topics are very delicate and could cause conflict between human relationship. I believe that that's true and we should avoid it in situation of business.

I was surprised a little bit, but it is a little bit different in my case. I came here as a engineer and when I go for lunch or dinner, I frequently go with my colleagues who come from many countries because it is fun to talk. Each people has unique and different background and we can tell a lot of things each other. Before I came here, I did not think that talk topics never come to political and religious things. However, it's not true a little bit. They have interesting in them and ask me about how I think about them. I have talked even about hierarchy status before with my close colleagues. 

What I have learned is that it would be ok to talk about them between engineers, especially close colleagues, but not sales or marketing. We definitely should not criticize their religion and blame historical matters on theirs politics. Even they would never do that. What I regretted so far is that I do not know much about politics of my home country and religious. I should be familiar with them more in order to make talk fun and make peoples feel that they think that it is good time to talk with me. In order to be able to talk about them, I would bring these topics here for my education.

I have never seen people who do not have own religious sine I came here. They definitely have it. If you go to Japan and ask people about what religion you believe, then you would be surprised because all most all people, especially young people, would say they do not have it. One of my friend said to me that even though I say I do not have own religion, I seem to behave like a buddism people. He told me a list of main idea of Buddism, then I thought that what he told me is common sense, but they are not common sense in other religions. So according his own idea, Japanese people just do not realize it but we Japanese behave like that because we learn them through growing up without realizing it. I think he is correct.

I'm sure for one thing. Japanese people do not know much about our own religious idea which we naturally follow, although that sounds strange. 

Street Fighter from CAPCON

Have you ever play a game name of Street Fighter from CAPCON early 1990s. Yes, I have. 

If you are men around 30s, you might have played it once or heard of its name. This is one to one fighting game released from a Japanese game company both for arcade cabinet and home game computer named as Super Nindendo Entertainment System in U.S, Super Famicom in Japan. Looking back my past, one third of boys in my classmates played this game. This is my opinion, but one of reason why this game was very popular is that each game player can choose a variety of unique characters from all over the world. Additionally, each character is different in terms of moving motion and special technique. For example, one character can moving faster, but less powerful. On the other hand, another character is powerful but its moving is slower. There, of course, is a character whose performance is average totally. After school, we often gathered at someone's house and played this together until the sun goes down. At that time, unlike today, there was not smart phone to play with alone, and family computer like Windows machine was not so popular. So the game console was only a computer for children at that time. The place where I lived is not rich area, not every child had it even though they wanted it. So if someone have a game console and softwares, then children naturally gathered there and spent time by playing games. Games ranged from fighting game, baseball, soccer and so on. The game console which was available at the time was not so high performance than game consols available now, so game was not so complicated, and graphics was not so nice, so it was easy to play. Last year I bought a game soft named Battle field 3, but what I felt when I played it first time was that graphics is so nice and looks almos real, but it is difficult to find enemies and targets because of its nice graphics ironically. Some peoples would say that it's real in terms of everything and it's actually difficult to fine enemies in real battle field. I agree. 

Anyway, a reason why I though to tell this game is that I read news about pro Japanese gamer, Taigo Umehara who is a champion of Street fighter. He published a book which name is " strong will to continue to win", although my translation might sounds strange. It is all about how to keep motivation to win and do it actually, which can be applied to anything. In this case, it is practice, practice, and practice everyday.

Take a look at this video which is showing Street Fighter game between two players in 2004. One of them is him and another is a champion of U.S.

If you have ever played fighting games, you would know how awesome this is and how difficult it is to come from behind and win. As you can see, his player is a guy with blond hair and white Judo uniform. His player power gage is much less than power game of the opponent at the middle. At the end of the game, he defended from the opponent's special technique and offended his character's special technique and won the game with cheering and applause. Latter he said about his godlike technique that what he did is usual technique, but the reason why he could do that in very noisy situation is that we focused on it very much. This is an example which is possible theoretically but difficult to do practically. Additionally, he said that his secret of winning is to practice very much. 

What I felt is that as is always true for anything, but if you want to be a professional, you definitely need practice much, no matter what professional it is. This fact is common sense but I realized it again.

My Mac does not recognize my CANON T3 REBEL

Issue
Mac book pro does not recognize Canon EOS T3 by using USB cable connection.
Answer 
Take out your SD card fron your camera and insert it into SDXC card slot of your Mac. It will work.


Here is my story about that. This is a story about a interface which I had never thought that I use, but which I have used it recently. 

I changed my computer from Windows based computer to Mac book pro almost 3 months ago because my previous PC was brocken for some reason. When I decided to switch from Windows to Mac, one concern is interface compatibility of devices like ipod touch, USB external harddisc, camera which I have been using so far. When I look back my past in Japan, nobody uses Mac except a few people, but as we know, ipod, ipod touch, and iphone from the Apple are big hits and huge success. Another success of these big his is that it makes people who buy these products feel like using Mac as well, although I am actually one of those. Consequently, Mac user population has been increasing so far, therefore almost all devices and software can be used not only for Windows but also for Mac recently. There, of course, are many exceptions about this. Today, I will tell you such a exception which I experienced a few days ago about my EOS Rebel T3, Canon SLR. 

I have three cameras, accessory camera of ipod touch, Richo compact digital camera, and Canon EOS Rebel T3. Basically, I carry ipod touch camera everyday, and I use the compact digital camera when I go somewhere and I don't want to carry heavy stuff, and I use SLR when I want to shot something beautiful view. Regarding former two camera, my Mac successfully recognize them by connecting them with USB cable, but my Mac does not recognized EOS T3 at all for some reason unlike it did with other cameras. 

As usual, I googled my issue while thinking that many people would face same issue around the world. That's correct, and many people discuss it so far. Some peoples suggested to install appropriate driver, and so I tired to do that but Canon says that it's not available for Mac in Canos web site. Can't I use the camera with my Mac ? That's what I concerned when I decided to switch. I got depressed a little bit at the time, but I patiently continued to search how to solve this. I was finally able to find a solution which is not essential solution but another way to get and transfer pictures from the camera to my Mac. It is to use SDXC card slot interface which Mac book pro basically has as default interface. When I took off a card from the camera, I realized that the card is not SDXC but SDHC, and I was wondering if my Mac recognize it, but when I inserted it to the slot, then my Mac successfully recognized it automatically !! When I bought my Mac, I realized that it has many kind of interfaces including firewire, thunderbolt, and SDXC slot which I had thought that I would not use. So I wondered if time comes when I use them, but it came actually.

SDXC seems to be a advanced interface standard for SD series which was proposed a few years ago, and it is compatible with previous standards of SDXC and SD 2.0.

My story was almost about me, but I hope that it can help those who face a exactly same issue.

Infinity G sedan : Stupid commercial which I have ever watched so far

When I watched CNN today, I felt uncomfortable to watch a commercial of Infinity G series. I would like CNN not to employ this non-moral commercial.

What do you think of this ? This is nothing but evil idea of retribution which we have seen in the world. I felt uncomfortable and doubted moral of peoples who made this and who approved this to be seen on TV. Honestly, I became disliking Infinity a little bit although I liked it. In my opinion, commercial should be made to encourage peoples who see it to buy its products. I believe that this commercial discourages peoples to buy it rather than encouraging to buy it. I'm very disappointed that Infinity can show appeal of its car only by doing this.

As many people know, Infinity G series is same category of BMW 3 series. Infinity thinks  BMW 3 series is rival of Infinity G series at least by watching Infinity's commercials so far, although we do not know that BMW thinks so. You can feel this when you watch Infinity's commercials because in their commercial Infinity shows G series and 3 series together and shows that G series is better than 3 series somehow by showing impression that driving G series gives you good opportunity every time. As far as I know, BMW never makes this kind of stupid commercials. They have own philosophy and never compare their car with other car and show their good points of products in terms of performance.

I would like Infinity to stop this kind of commercial and show their own philosophy of their products because this would give bad impression to peoples who are thinking to buy it. If I though which to buy G series or BMW 3 now, I would buy BMW 3.

I would like to know how peoples think of this.
I would appreciate your comment.

Smart something : reinvention of products and idea

I think that many people already noticed that many products which names start from a word of "smart" are coming out recently. For example, smart phone, smart TV, and smart phone appliance have already come out. These products are reinvention of existing products and idea which have been popular but have not changed so much so far. As far as smart something is concerned, reinvention comes together with implementation of internet to existing products by using ethernet or wireless technology, especially WiFi. With internet, smart devices allow us to connect peoples each other and connect peoples to internet world, and make our life better and more fun. 

Smart phone is obviously one of most successful smart products which we have seen ever because it can totally change the way of use of phone from a device by which people can connect each other to a device by which people can stay connected all the time by using internet. Needless to say, staying connected all the time is controversial issue with which people suffers from distracted moment all the time and people can not focus on their jobs. However, there are a lot of benefits. For example, it could help people contact each other by using smart phone when the large earthquake hit the Japan last year because phone system was down due to over capacity but internet system was still alive. 

Here is a question which many people might have in their mind, "What comes next ? ". 
Many peoples already have worked on them like smart grid, smart car, etc. In electrical and electric industries, smart grid has huge potential for next market because it can enhance power efficiency to which even government in many countries pay attention. Many companies can expect financial support from governments. Smart grid is a technology which combine internet netwrok and existing power system to make the system more efficient to reduce power. 
Honestly, nobody knows what comes next with high possibility, so let me list up as much as I can by putting just a word of "smart" to existing products and idea inside home.

• Smart mag gup
  This would analys ingredient of liquid and shows how much each ingredient is in, and send data to could data base, and you can check it out with your smart phone or PC.
• Smart refrigerator
  This already exists so far which analysis ingredient in it and show date of sell and tell you it's time to use before it's out of date.
• Smart dining table
  This would analys what you eat everyday in terms of heath care, and collect data everyday and suggest what you miss and what you should eat to keep yourself healthier.
• Smart chair
  This would measure your weight, body fat percentage, etc, and send data to could data base so that you can access it.
• Smart door
  This would have a camera, a microphone and a speaker connected with network, and it would be helpful for you to watch who comes and push a door bell and you can answer from anywhere. For example, if someone comes to your place and push a door bell when you are out of the place, it connect you with camera, and you can  answer it if you want.
• Smart toilet
  I'm sure that Japanese toilet advanced more than any countries' one.
  Smart toilet idea is clearly explained by Japanese, Morinosuke Kawaguchi at the TED Tokyo. He explained not only advanced toilet in Japan but also its history.

Regarding smart toilet, there is a video which is a presentation from him. He talks in Japanese, but there is English translation together. It's worth watching to be able to figure out how advanced it is.

If you can understand Japanese, you can enjoy the presentation more because his way of speaking is very humorous.

Apple map was warned by Australian police

Many people already knows that Apple has replaced preinstalled map in Iphone from Google based map to their own map last September. Regarding this change, there seems to be political decision inside Apple by considering to implement own services on their map because Google refused to provide requests from the Apple.

When they released new Iphone, many people complained about quality of the Apple's own map because the service is out of question. The map provide wrong places for users. 

It's not a minor bug but a major bug at many places. Providing correct places is the most important roles required for maps. Many people wondered how they could release their own map with many bugs. 

Last week, terrible incidents were eventually reported in Australia because of Apple map. Some people planed to go some town but it was wrongly located in a national park in the Apple map, and the map navigated them there and they got lost there finally. The problem was that it is a national park so there is no light at night, and there is no water supply, and temperature goes up and down largely, so they could die there.

The cases mentioned above are rather extreme cases, but similar things can happen anywhere because many people relied on Iphone instead of GPS so far because Google map provides very good quality servies. For example, when my friend visits the bay area for business trips from Japan, he used iphone for GPS navigation.

I hope that the Apple updates it to make it better services.

News

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/10/apple-maps-australia-error/1759991/