To the guys doing interface design at Google: for fuck’s sake, do something already about the language settings on your search interface.

This is an example of what I see everyday when I’m searching things on Google while logged to my account. Notice that the interface and the search results are in Japanese:

 Yes, I can read Japanese, but that’s not the point. My Google account is configured to display an English interface and provide search results from English sites, and I would expect these settings to work from a company like Google:

Manually going to http://www.google.com/intl/en works, but I’d rather not have to enter the URL manually every time I need to search for something. To make things more fun, logging out from my Google account also displays an English interface with English search results, because that’s the primary language on my web browser.

I’m sure I’m not the first person complaining about this. Please do something already.

No, I haven’t turned gay (but hey, I don’t know about what will happen in the future). This is actually about a Japanese woman who decided to start looking for a boyfriend on GitHub, of all places. For those of you who (unlike me) aren’t computer nerds, GitHub is a hosting service for software developers who want to store their projects online using the Git revision control system. I know, it sounds nerdy because it is. The point is that by posting something like this on GitHub, it is likely that she has ensured remaining alone for the rest of her life. Or not. There are lots of desperate male geeks out there too.

Her original application (in Japanese) is here. I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I translated it into English for you.

Enjoy

Background

I’ve been getting old without being very interesting to men. I’ve started to feel afraid of not being able to ever get married. Because of this, I’m sending this application for a life partner.

Requirements

I’m by no means an expert in music, but I can tell when I see a good performance. Last week I went to one of those. The event was part of the Tears of Today Tour 2012, which was just a couple of performances by several artists: one in Tokyo and another in Osaka.

I was invited by Luschka. She’s the singer in one of the bands (named after her), and she also plays the keyboards in another. Shameless plug here: she’s also my coworker.

I’m at the Glass Building in the Tokyo International Forum right now. I can’t describe how much I love this place. I’ve traveled a bit, and so far this is the building I like the most.

From the outside this building looks like a gigantic ship hull made of glass, steel, concrete and wires. From the inside it feels as if you’ve been swallowed by a huge skeletal whale, or perhaps an alien spaceship. It stands seven floors above the ground, with a huge glass façade on one side, and conference rooms on the other. It also has two more floors underground, the first one connecting to the train and subway lines, and the second one housing a conventions center.

I’m standing now in the top floor. There’s a very nice Chinese restaurant here. It’s probably very expensive too. From here I can hear the sound the steel wires make as they handle the tensions of the building frame moving this way and that with the wind. There’s almost no other sound, other than the trains running outside towards Tokyo station and the strokes of a bell coming from the Yurakucho station.

This place both inspires and relaxes me. I could stay here the whole day just thinking.

If only there was a damn place to sit.

I found this video while I was wasting time in YouTube tonight. I shows what driving in Tokyo feels like. I think it is awesome.

The video starts in the Wangan-sen (Bayshore Route), then crosses Odaiba, the Rainbow Bridge, leaves the Tokyo Tower behind, goes through Roppongi where you can see the Mori Tower to the left, and heads towards Shibuya.

Enjoy.

The new seats in the Tobu Tojo line.

This is the train I rode yesterday in the Tobu Tojo line. The long rows of seats on the sides of the cars have been replaced by three pairs of seats like these. Apparently these new seats can pivot like the ones they have in long-distance trains.

Shopping street near Oyama station

It’s a very, very beautiful day today with a very clear sky.

It’s also very, very hot with very high humidity. It’s comfortable at home with the air conditioner, but going outside means being hit in the face with a heatwave. Same thing as when you’re walking on the street and a huge bus goes past you and the hot air exhaust from the air conditioner hits you in the face. Except the bus stays there until you go back inside.

If you know me, then most likely you’ve heard me talk about this car before. The Lotus Elise is in my opinion the most awesome car ever: minimalist interior and just the bare minimum of driving assists to make this car the most fun to drive in the world, at 1/4 of what you would expect to pay for an equivalent Porsche or Lamborghini.

As you may know, the new Elise S version was released last month. Next weekend there’s a presentation event in Daikanyama. These are the details:

２０１２年８月３日〜４日（朝１０時〜夕方１９時）
代官山T-SITE
東京都渋谷区猿楽町１７−５

The same thing, in English:

August 3rd and 4th, from 10am to 7pm
Daikanyama T-Site
17-5 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

I will be there on Saturday 4th from around 10:30am. If you’re coming too, just send me a message!

No, silly woman! You will not get a melanoma in the 5-minute walk from the station to your home!

Many Japanese women use umbrellas on sunny days to protect their skin from the Sun. They actually prefer their skin to be as white as possible (deathbed-white).

This woman takes it a bit too far. She opens her umbrella on a very cloudy day, for a 5-minute walk from the station, at almost 6pm in the afternoon.

Don’t tell anyone, but I think we’ve found a vampire!

Remember this post from a few days ago? I got very upset because Facebook keeps messing with its users’ personal information. In this case, they replaced everybody’s email address with a @facebook.com address. That was too much for me and I decided to leave, after removing my personal information from there.

I must admit defeat. I’m sad to say this, but Facebook wins.

My intention was to go through my friends’ profiles, write down the contact information and other data I wanted to keep (mostly birthdays), and then leave.

However, I found that I couldn’t get any contact information for most of my friends, because almost nobody has changed back to their real email address. Nice lock-in there, Facebook.

Also, during these days I’ve kept receiving friend requests from people I know in real life, messages from my family (even though I told them to email me instead), event invitations, etc. I admit it: it’s difficult to leave Facebook. So that’s it, I admit that I suck

As a damage control measure, I’m removing as much personal information from there as I can, but I’ll stay.