I knocked on the doors of Keeper LABO, a shop which specializes in body washing and coating. Treated the car to a three layer coating called "W Diamond Keeper" consisting of two glass coating layers and one of resin. Also paid some extra to have my wheels, the engine bay and door sills coated too. I was told at delivery that they had to do a lot of polishing before the coating to get rid of the water stains and grime, which is my fault not doing the washing and drying of the body completely.

Beautiful looking at the refreshed car. I recognized how beautiful and glossy the car was at the beginning. The looks have returned to the original state, including the touch and feel of the smooth body. I also love the plump water drop that's created on the body. I can keep watching them for hours.

Few weeks before the bombing in Japan, a nuclear bombing test took place at "Trinity Site", in New Mexico. 40 thousand people living in the vicinity were not informed of the experiment, and took radioactive water and food produced in the area for years, leading to radioactive poisoning.

There are no boundaries between civilian people. "Hibakusha" in Japan and "HIbakusha" the US share the same suffering, pressed against by their own "country": Government Power. Boundaries exist between the countries, which have become entities of their own, not for the people. Boundaries cause conflicts between the countries, and it is the civilians that have to sacrifice.

War....has always become a conflict between government power and its own civilians.
Even now.

About time "countries" acted for it's people. The people want their countries to sign the Nuclear Weapons Convention. Why can't it be signed ?

My guess was "Flexgate".
This is said to be a design flaw of the backlight flex cable being too short and breaking with repeated opening/closing of the display. Apple initially did not admit this as a flaw until May of 2019 when it launched a repair program for 13-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ models manufactured in 2016 ONLY. This lead to a class action lawsuit demanding Apple to expand the models eligible for the program to 15"machines and 2017 models as well.

My Apple Care warranty is expired, and Apple tells me I'll be getting a 90k yen check for the fix. A new 2019 Macbook Pro is too much to pay for. Lastly, I can't be be waiting for years till Flexgate reaches a verdict.

I was on the web searching for Macbook repair shops and several of them quoted me around 60K yen for the display renewal. Less than what Apple charges, but still hurts the wallet. Darn.

A more extended search came up with a shop that quoted me 25K yen for a cable fix. They tell me this is a typical issue with Macbook Pros and they have a lot of experience fixing it. Figured this is the best way to go as of now, so I send my machine to this shop via "takkyu-bin".

Now as I am writing this post and about "Flexgate", I get an email from the shop telling me the cause of my machine backlight failure is NOT the flex cable but a defective chip on the main board. They quote me an additional 10K yen for replacing the chip which hurts the wallet, but there's not much else to do it it's what it takes for the fix so I ask them to go ahead with the repair.

It took a couple of days for the shop to return me a message that the repair is finished, with pictures of the broken chip and the fixed machine.

I must say I was lucky to find a shop with a trustful, nice attitude, and reasonable pricing. Nice to have my Macbook Pro back and running, but at the same time need to remind this was an unexpected expense....gotta save up on my coffee and snacks.

• MacRumors : Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over 'Flexgate' Issue With MacBook Pro Displays - https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/08/flexgate-class-action-lawsuit/

While browsing the site, I came across Christopher Cross's debut piece :"Ride Like the Wind". It's a song about a worn out bandit on the run, still more to go till the Mexico border and "riding like the wind" to reach freedom.

Not in the same meaning as intended, but I send myself the words "Ride Like the Wind" on my birthday. At this time of drastic change and new way of life, one who cannot adjust to the changes will not survive.

Ride like the wind, go with the flow, and accept the changes that occur.
Sometimes difficult not being the smart and flexible type, but I need to work on it.
Still a bit to go, but the border is near.

Working from home, May 2020.

Since I was fortunate to have a room for my own to setup my tele-work environment, that certainly helped me concentrate on work. It did help in achieving a lot effectively, but it came with some negatives. Since I apparently was so focused and somewhat overly concentrating, the days usually wound up noticing myself completely exhausted. In addition to the work space, I guess that focusing all day on your PC display which is the one and only connection to your team and company drains most of your energy at the end of the day. Controlling yourself, snapping yourself out of the concentration for a break once in a while is important. I actually experienced swollen legs from sitting at the desk all day. Getting away from the displays and going out for a short walk at lunch time also helps a lot.

Lessons learned. A nice experience to actually learn how you can or cannot manage yourself in a tele-work situation.

In my case, reducing person-to-person contact by 80% from my usual days including my commute on the train would become around 20 people. If I were to count strictly the people who come within my social distance of 2 meters, this 18 people/day turns out to be quite difficult to achieve since the majority of people aren't aware of social distancing and walk by you so closely without any bad faith. They even give you a grin if you try to back off. I am not aware of any stores that have any signs of keeping distance inside, except COSTCO which is of US origin. If I were to seriously aim for less than 20, I'd have to give up my daily jog (walk in public) to achieve it. IF everyone become aware of social distancing and seriously abides by it, I believe it will work.

I plan to keep a day by day record of how many person-to-person contact I have made, to keep myself conscious of this 80% target which all Japanese citizens have to keep in mind for the next month.

• 04/09: approx. 20ppl
• 04/10: approx. 20ppl
• 04/11: approx. 10ppl
• 04/12: 0ppl
• 04/13: 0ppl
• 04/14: 2ppl
• 04/15: 0ppl
• 04/16: approx. 10ppl
• 04/17: approx. 20ppl
• 04/18: 0ppl
• 04/19: 5ppl
• 04/20: 1ppl
• 04/21: 0ppl
• 04/22: 10ppl
• 04/23: 20ppl
• 04/24: 0ppl
• 04/25: 0ppl
• 04/26: 5ppl
• 04/27: 0ppl
• 04/28: 0ppl
• 04/29: 3ppl
• 04/30: 0ppl
• 05/01: 5ppl
• 05/02: 3ppl
• 05/03: 5ppl
• 05/04: 5ppl
• 05/05: 5ppl
• 05/06: 0ppl
• 05/07: 0ppl
• 05/08: 1ppl
• 05/09: 2ppl

* Stopping the recording of social distancing as of May 9, since it has fulfilled the role of keeping me conscious of person2person contact to the point that it is now in my blood.

• Asahi.com "Experts: Small fraction could derail social distancing plan" - http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13287260

Everyone's relying on video calls to stay connected during this #stayhome time, and webcams and video boards are difficult to find even if you're willing to pay. This utility solves that for EOS users.

I've installed the utility on my Win10 UMPC：GPD Pocket that doesn't have an integrated camera, hooked my EOS M6 Mark II to it via USB and it worked just fine on ZOOM.

The image quality is obviously much high compared to the low-res webcam images we've become used to these days, and it's easy to notice at a glance.

Good job Canon.

note: It is a beta version with no support outside of the US. Use it at your own risk.

• Canon USA:EOS Webcam Utility Beta - https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/self-help-center/eos-webcam-utility/

Another unexpected improvement (should have imagined, my oversight) was that the extended signal range in new generation access points enables me to reduce the number of Access points from 3 to 2. (Yes, I needed 3 to cover my small apartment full of walls !) The new access point also uses some technology that pinpoints and aims at the client device in transferring the wireless signal. Wow, technology improvements !

I guess it does make sense to invest in your network infrastructure once in a while.

Amazon Japan:

• @nak.com - #supporttakeout (in Japanese)