the ascii garden

Returning to Dayton (Hamvention 2026)

2026-06-06T00:00:00Z

Every year in May, Dayton Ohio welcomes the largest amateur radio event in the United States. It's part trade show, part swapmeet, part conference, part fandom con. You can meet your favorite YouTubers, seek out grant funding, get early demos and datasheets for upcoming products, buy someone's junk out of the back of their truck, and listen to presentations on the latest developments in maximizing your ham radio mileage on Linux. It is the ultimate gathering for and by electrical engineers eligible for medicare.

After grabbing one of the few direct flights out from AUS to Ohio, I rented a car (for the first time, which was less stressful than I expected, but more expensive) and drove a bit over an hour into the Dayton area, bordering Xenia, OH where the convention takes place. The journey was surprisingly gorgeous but I was in too much of a rush to stop and take pictures!

The ARISS booth

The team at Hamvention!

This is my second time attending Hamvention; both occasions were the result of an invite from ARISS. Last year, I spoke on the year's panel about fram2ham, which I might have to reflect on in a different post sometime. This year, I came to table with the group and share some of the engineering org's accomplishments with the community.

Prepping for the panel

I didn't get to talk as much of the year's progress as I had hoped, but the abbreviation was well justified because we got to host an interesting presentation from John Shoffner. John flew to the ISS as the pilot aboard the Ax-2 mission in 2023, and he shared how his experience in space was an opportunity used for STEM education.

There is obvious value of a discussion like this to ARISS, which depends on the cooperation of crew members, space agencies, and commercial space to carry out its activities. It was super awesome to hear someone that had actually been to orbit articulate why this kind of education is impactful and how the fun radio part ARISS provides enhances it.

The ARISS 70cm, 2m, and S-band antenna unit in use on the ISS

Of course, it was also valuable to me, because I am an insane person. I tried to ask John about what it was like to fly on Dragon as an end user. He didn't have much feedback. Given the stakes of any trip taken strapped to a machine capable of generating over 800 tons of thrust, I think that's probably a massive compliment to the team, but who can say.

I was also curious about the dynamics of travelling to the space station after purchasing a seat. Do you get to hang out in the cupola all day? As it turns out, you don't. John told me he was put to work and had his time planned in the same OPTIMIS scheduler as the NASA astronauts.

I still cannot quite wrap my head around being in the right place, time, and extent of wealth to be able to pay for a trip to space, but if I were in that position, I don't think I would complain about needing to work. I think when people dream of going to space, they dream of being able to create some kind of difference for the global community while they're there, like the astronauts before them. Without the work, orbit is just the absence of earth. With it, it's something else.

The ISS radio system, including power supply and TM-D710G

Beyond the table

I spent most of my time at the con chatting with folks at the booth, but occasionally a sidequest found me.

Libre Space had a good presence again this year. I swear I'll set up a satnogs ground station this year!! I swear!!
AMSAT presented a hardware model of GOLF-TEE and gave me a cute GOLF-TEE sticker. This project has been in the works for a long time, so I hope it can see qualification and a launch opportunity soon.
ARDC had a 44net demo running on a VT102 terminal. Why?? For fun! Obviously! I've been following ARDC for quite a while now but only really had a chance to meet their team personally for the first time at this event. It turns out ARDC might be the craziest network of computing OGs that exists. I had a lot of fun talking with them.
My friend Hope had me do a quick segment about ARISS for her family's YouTube channel that they are reviving this year. It was so good to see you, Hope!!
I met Conor (Critical_Frequency on YouTube), who was working on a documentary-style video about the power of community in ham radio after getting involved into the hobby a couple of years ago. This dude's production quality is absurd.
AI4TB from the YouTube channel QRP Life was handing out tiny green UV5R minis. He told me the radios are 20 dollars and he used them to demo a live satellite contact using a whip antenna. This was super good intel and literally the picture of a perfect demo, awesome to hear about.
I met a gentleman from the JSC amateur radio club (W5RRR). When I told him I had never visited JSC, he laughed and said I would be blown away because by comparison, KSC is child's play. Then he invited me to come visit the club. Sir, I don't know why, but it felt like a challenge. I'll see you there.

The outreach subject

Earlier on, I made a medicare joke. I know some people will take this seriously, so for the record, that comes from a place of love!! There's nothing wrong with Hamvention being an event for predominantly older people. Regardless, I stand out, and I think that's why I am frequently asked at these kinds of events about why I'm there.

As someone that got involved in my teens and is involved in an organization that targets student outreach, the phenomenon bears examining. ARISS is mostly successful at reaching the ham radio community. It is mostly successful at reaching educators. I am not sure it is successful at breaching containment and reaching people under 20, without the assistance of the educational contacts. The contacts are the most important part, but we can likely do more. What is working? What isn't?

Perhaps Hamvention holds a clue. It's not super surprising that most of the folks travelling to this event are those with money to spend. Still, I met several people in my age group at Hamvention this year, and what I observed mirrored what I saw in my community in Chicago and later in university. Overwhelmingly, people getting into this hobby for the first time are on one of two paths: a participatory family member brought them into it, or they discovered it through the internet while exploring the world of hacking, making, and electronics. Regardless of where they start initially, they end up part of amateur radio, particularly online, as experimenters. (Some folks are notably more into contesting and home station building than the electronics components specifically but that is a separate phenomenon/discussion.)

My takeaway is that there is still massively untapped potential in telegraphing the fun of this hobby online through the lens of accessible technical projects. There is so much to do and see, and although there has been much development in this area in recent years, there is still a lot of opportunity in the realm of a 'wireless Youtuber' or 'wireless TikToker' to explore. I think a super effective kind of presence in this space would be one that isn't a "ham radio YouTuber" exclusively (hence extending the audience) but someone that integrates ham radio as one of the many tools in their toolbox. The channel "saveitforparts" comes to mind as a possible example.

I'm hesitant to post photos and footage of myself these days, but I might make an attempt at this anyway. Has the time come for a radio vtuber? I'm joking. Or... maybe I'm not? lol, no current plans.

Point A to Point B

As soon as I woke up Sunday morning, it was back to the airport and off to my next destination. I ended up in a conversation with some pilots while I was waiting for my flight, and they gave me plane trading cards.

Insanely whimsical, made my day. Maybe my week.

The website is back!!

2026-06-02T00:00:00Z

It's here! I finally republished ascii.garden after months of not doing it after I said I would!

This time, the site is built with one of the off-the-shelf static site generators (currently, 11ty). The result of this choice was a refactor that is in conflict with my very soul. In all ways, as a person, I am wholly against solving a problem with a 10,000 dollar multitool that should be solved with a hammer and a knife. I also hate JavaScript so so so much despite my past attempts to get over this. Inside me there are two wolves and one is a unique kind of software elitist I cannot kill.

Regardless, my priority here was to make it as painless as possible to actually post. It is easy. And the tags work. It took an afternoon and the result is a mostly unobjectionable static site. So despite being possessed by a wolf that screams "oh my god I hate npm packages and apps" every time I breathe in the direction of the web, we're doing this. For my friends that are interested in starting up blogs, I think I can recommend this method maybeeeee possibly.

The content here is so far the same as it was after the last refactor, but I've deleted things. In 2025, I essentially only published content I had to write half-asleep for a grade at school (both posts and resume revisions)! No surprise, these were bad! Also, some one-offs have been deleted i.e. the fram2 test keps. If you need these for whatever reason feel free to email me.

I'm excited to fill this site with tons of new stuff. Pictures of places I've been, logs about things I'm working on, art, ramblings and rantings, etc. Should be fun!!

AIBO Therapy 2.0

2025-04-25T00:00:00Z

In 1st grade, I became completely obsessed with something called "AIBO". Later, I joined the AIBO-Life forums and met a kind individual named WolfBob. WolfBob loaned me a couple of robots in exchange for developing 'AIBO THERAPY' for his repair work. This was an incredible and selfless thing to do that meaningfully opened new doors for me. I will never forget it. Thank you Bob.

'AIBO THERAPY' can be used to manually exercise the joints on most of the old-school AIBO models. This is important because the robots accumulate dust inside their potentiometers. This prevents normal function and sometimes causes complete shutdown if the robot is thoroughly convinced that something is stuck in its leg.

Please note that I wrote this software when I was around 13 years old, hence it is not a masterpiece nor am I supporting it anymore. I am listing it here for your convenience as a legacy tool.

Downloads

AIBO THERAPY 2.0 is 'PMS' software. The memory stick used must contain the 'PMS' magic file for this software to work.

It is recommended that you set AIBO on a shoebox or other elevated platform while using this software.

Fourier Analysis on the Crypton SUPER PACK

2024-08-30T00:00:00Z

Assertion

Newly released products HATSUNE MIKU SP and MEGURINE LUKA SP use the same recorded source data at their highest recorded pitches.

Data Description

Fourier analysis and pitch detection algorithm SRH is used to estimate the fundamental frequency of both singing voices.

tS a_4

MIKU SP	LUKA SP

M’ M_4

MIKU SP	LUKA SP

Analysis

They are not the same.

Samples do not occur within the same pitch ranges and have visibly different amplitudes.

If LUKA SP were a pitched-down version of MIKU SP, we would see the same characterization of the pitch at the fundamental frequency over time, albeit in a different range. This means that if this were the case, the y-axis would be different, but the shape of the curve would be the same or similar. Because this is not the case, we can reasonably determine the samples to be separate recordings.

the song recommendation is: sm43708803. written on 2024/08/30

ERS-1000 Networking (and API)

2024-02-26T00:00:00Z

Unlike previous models, the ERS-1000 is a cloud-connected device that continuously connects to the network (provided its network switch has set WiFi and/or LTE to enabled). While the dog is capable of functioning off-network, key features are locked behind its web API. In addition, an as-of-yet unexplained system lock occurs on some units that cannot connect to the internet or ping cellular. (Could it be that these are security protections against tampering gone awry?)

Therefore, it is pertinent to have some understanding of the ERS-1000 network structure and features prior to EOL. The following research implicates only public information the AIBO API serves.

Networking nitty-gritties

AIBO connects to a large quantity of servers.

The myaibo application in particular is concerned with four servers primarily, outside of CDNs:

"friend", which handles friended AIBOs and keeping track of interaction between those robots
"feedish" (feed dish), which handles the online 'feeding AIBO' features
"trinity", which handles "AIBO missions" sent from AIBO patrol
"frontgate", which appears to handle most other aspects of AIBO's online features such as the dog's hospitalization and update status, EULA, registered persons, etc
"image" for storing and serving the images taken by AIBO

Beyond this, there are analytics servers, content delivery servers, Amazon IOT servers, compute clusters, Amazon cloudfront interfaces, and others, that handle live data from the robot and build out the user interfaces.

The general cycle of behavior on the web is vaguely as follows:

myaibo authorizes with the server
the latest version of the EULA is retrieved, and its acceptance status is checked
the user's settings are retrieved
the user's robots and their data are retrieved
the user's cloud subscription status is received
the robot's hospitalization status is received
the server takes logs
robot function servers are queried
device state and functionality is checked
system status and settings are checked
app announcements are checked
aibo's photos are checked and downloaded
aibo's brain is served
timezones are checked
a list of error codes is received

Information from AIBO (hontai)

AIBO's personality

AIBO reports both static values representing its set "personality" and dynamic "mood" values that inform AIBO's current state.

The static personality values are:

extroversion
conscientiousness
openness
neuroticism
sportsMinded

Along with these static values, the server reports a "type" and a "level". The known "levels" are "little" and "normal", presumably connected to their age. The types correspond to the listed personality delineations in the app.

Listed Name	Internal Name	extro- version	conscientious- ness	openness	neuroticism	sportsMinded
shy	shy	0	1	0	0.2	0
curious	cute	0.6	0.5	0.6	1	0
clingy	easygoing	1	0.5	0	0	0.3

Note that this is an incomplete list. The "curious" values listed are for an aibo in their "little" stage rather than adult stage. It is possible there is more variation. If you'd like to contribute to this research and have a cloud-connected ERS-1000, let me know.

The dynamic values are:

anticipation_surprise
fear_anger
joy_sadness
trust_disgust

These values scale and are probably 16 bit decimals.

Error codes

Refers to all "popup" style notifications that can appear in the app. They also include feature notifications.

Most are copies of themselves, but they have distinct serials. The existing prefixes are DEV, NET, MEC, SYS, APP, FUP, SEC, FOTA, LEARNING, TRAINING, TIPS.

DEV: General internal errors
NET: Network errors
MEC: Mechanical errors
SYS: 'System' error. Standard "restart your aibo" error
APP: App errors? Standard "restart your aibo" error
FUP: Failed update errors
SEC: Also a failed update error.
FOTA: Firmware Over the Air. Prompts you to update AIBO.
TRAINING: Notifies that the "be quiet" behaviors have changed or improved.
TIPS: Notifies that your AIBO can get off of the station by itself after having charged.

Model numbers

For an unknown reason, a full list of used and unused model numbers is reported.

MODEL #	REGION
ERS-1000/N2 J1	"JP"
SR1-XXXX/Y J1	"JP"
SR1-XXXX/Z J1	"JP"
SR1-XXXX/Y U8	"US"
SR1-XXXX/A J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/A J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/B J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/C J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/D J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/E J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/F J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/G J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/H J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/I J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/J J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/K J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/L J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/M J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/N J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/O J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/P J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/Q J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/R J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/S J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/T J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/U J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/V J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/W J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/X J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/Y J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/Z J1	"JP"
SR1-1000/A U8	"US"
SR1-1000/B U8	"US"
SR1-1000/C U8	"US"
SR1-1000/D U8	"US"
SR1-1000/E U8	"US"
SR1-1000/F U8	"US"
SR1-1000/G U8	"US"
SR1-1000/H U8	"US"
SR1-1000/I U8	"US"
SR1-1000/J U8	"US"
SR1-1000/K U8	"US"
SR1-1000/L U8	"US"
SR1-1000/M U8	"US"
SR1-1000/N U8	"US"
SR1-1000/O U8	"US"
SR1-1000/P U8	"US"
SR1-1000/Q U8	"US"
SR1-1000/R U8	"US"
SR1-1000/S U8	"US"
SR1-1000/T U8	"US"
SR1-1000/U U8	"US"
SR1-1000/V U8	"US"
SR1-1000/W U8	"US"
SR1-1000/X U8	"US"
SR1-1000/Y U8	"US"
SR1-1000/Z U8	"US"
ERS-1000/A J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/B J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/C J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/D J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/E J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/F J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/G J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/H J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/I J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/J J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/K J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/L J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/M J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/N J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/O J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/P J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/Q J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/R J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/S J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/T J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/U J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/V J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/W J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/X J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/Y J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/Z J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/BI2J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/WI2J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/W3 J1	"JP"
ERS-1000/A U8	"US"
ERS-1000/B U8	"US"
ERS-1000/C U8	"US"
ERS-1000/D U8	"US"
ERS-1000/E U8	"US"
ERS-1000/F U8	"US"
ERS-1000/G U8	"US"
ERS-1000/H U8	"US"
ERS-1000/I U8	"US"
ERS-1000/J U8	"US"
ERS-1000/K U8	"US"
ERS-1000/L U8	"US"
ERS-1000/M U8	"US"
ERS-1000/N U8	"US"
ERS-1000/O U8	"US"
ERS-1000/P U8	"US"
ERS-1000/Q U8	"US"
ERS-1000/R U8	"US"
ERS-1000/S U8	"US"
ERS-1000/T U8	"US"
ERS-1000/U U8	"US"
ERS-1000/V U8	"US"
ERS-1000/W U8	"US"
ERS-1000/X U8	"US"
ERS-1000/Y U8	"US"
ERS-1000/Z

Not likely intended behavior-- but isn't this fascinating?

Bizarre discoveries and funny comeuppances

AIBO's virtual food items have a "weight", implying AIBO can gain weight. Realistically, this is probably how the server keeps track of when AIBO is 'full'.
Early in the ERS-1000's lifespan, it was announced that Chinese and American releases would be targeted. While the American release materialized, the Chinese release did not. Remnants indicate that the myaibo applications were being developed for Mandarin prior to that aspect of the project's cancellation.
AIBO uses connmann.

the song recommendation is: sm43429658. written 02/26/2024

【ボイドロイド】が訳してみた

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

ボイドロイド

A demo song for upcoming CeVIO AI vocal HARU, featuring accompaniment from vocals Hatsune Miku and Otomachi Una AI.

voidroid

夕景
yuukei
Dusk

独りで引き摺る影
hitori de hikizuru kage
Dragging along a lone shadow

五時の鐘と嘘数える声
goji no kane to uso kazoeru koe
The five o'clock bell and a voice counting lies

「もういいかい？」
"mou ii kai?"
"Are you ready?"

響くmurder , murder
hibiku murder, murder
Reverberating murder, murder

まあ黙ったまんまだったろ
maa damatta manma dattaro
Well, I don't think anybody said anything, though

僕は通行人A
boku wa tsuukounin A
I'm passer-by A

「もういいかい？」
"mou ii kai?"
"Are you ready?"

僕が歌ったのは赤い孔雀
boku ga utatta no wa akai kujaku
I sung of a red peacock

彼が思ったのは青い鴉
kare ga omotta no wa aoi karasu
He thought of a blue crow

羽ばたく鳥は電話線へ
habataku tori wa denwasen e
The bird is flying to a telephone line

霞むimage
kasumu image
A blurring image

君には詞がreal
kimi ni wa uta ga real
To you, these lyrics are real

彼の言葉に惑わされないで
kare no kotoba ni madowasarenaide
Don't be fooled by what he says,

僕に教えて
boku ni oshiete
Tell me,

君が見たのはどんな色の羽根？
kimi ga mita no wa donna iro no hane?
What color were the feathers you saw?

振り解けない
furihodokenai
Unable to break loose,

義務と化した自由
gimu to kashita jiyuu
from freedom that became obligation

気付きたくない
kizukitakunai
I don't want to become concious

生きる為の理由
ikiru tame no riyuu
of the reason to live

詞が無かったら届かない
kotoba ga nakattara todokanai
When words don't exist, they don't get across

詞があっても届かない
kotoba ga atte mo todokanai
Even when there are words, they don't get across

僕が歌ったのは曇硝子
boku ga utatta no wa kumorigarasu
I sung of the cloudy glass

彼が思ったのは今朝のblack
kare ga omotta no wa kesa no black
He thought of this morning's black

飛び立つ鳥と伝播せぬX
tobitatsutori to denpasenu X
A bird flying away and an X unable to propagate

とばすpage
tobasu page
Skim the page

歪な言葉狩り
ibitsu na kotobakari
A distorted hunting of words

彼の言葉を鵜呑みにするなら
kare no kotoba o unomi ni suru nara
If you're keen on taking him at face value

どうぞ、おくちにチャック！
douzo, okuchi ni chakku!
Then please, zip it!

頭が痛い
atama ga itai
My head hurts

盲目的な自分
moumokuteki na jibun
I've a blind faith kind of self

ただ揺れていたい
tada yurete itai
I just want to sway

暴力的なrhythm
bouryokuteki na rhythm
To the violent rhythm

振り解けない
furihodokenai
Unable to break loose,

義務と化した自由
gimu to kashita jiyuu
from freedom that became obligation

気付きたくない
kizukitakunai
I don't want to become conscious

生きる為の理由
ikiru tame no riyuu
of the reason to live

Notes

Isn't this an amazing song? r-906 has been one of my favorite producers for a long time, and I think this song in particular is a return to form for some of his earlier work-- albeit with his new layer of polish. If this song interested you, I'd recommend checking out the rest of his work, particularly the songs 'Panopticon' and 'Psi', that have a similar sense of subversion in the lyrics.

There are a number of things that interest me about this song in particular. The speaker and the man experience the same world differently. One person sees a red peacock. The other sees a blue crow. Rather than simply accepting what the man tells us-- "the bird is a blue crow," the speaker encourages us to consider our own worldview first. It's a pretty clear request for critical thinking on the part of the listener. Don't just parrot what you hear-- or is what you see a green parrot? lol.

I also really love the way the lyrics call into question your own sensory experience and mental visualization of the words you hear! This is a definete situation where comprehension of the lyrics makes all the difference for the impactfulness of the song.

Finally, I like the fact that the bird imagery was tied into the 'violent' existence of Twitter, which has since been chaotically repainted into X. Twitter is a good example of the kind of "melting pot" of people's ideas and "blind faith" representations of worldviews. The speaker feels resigned to it, which I do empathize with.

Thank you so much to Violet for the translation check! I always learn a lot from their comments.

the song recommendation is: sm42585649

【く〇たしげたかがまどからみている】が訳してみた

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

く〇たしげたかがまどからみている

sm40772073

Do you know who Shigetaka Kurita is? Well, I didn't either before I became more active on niconico douga. The dutiful COO of niconico, he tweets constantly about the goings-on of the community and regularly appears in livestreams. In other words, he's a meme of his own caliber.

I tried to translate this song, which was released last July to instant fanfare by Fujiwara Hagane. You might think that a typical 'respect' urban horror story is about to unfold, but prepare for a surprise.

I'm not sure why I waited so long to do this, but I just got out of an interview and needed a break so it seemed like a good time. I did my due dilligence but I'm not a professional, so please keep that in mind.

Shigetaka Ku██ta is watching from my window

赤い鳥居の柱の横
akai torii no hashira no yoko
Beside the post of a red torii gate,

きれいな貝殻を拾いました
kirei na kaigara o hiroimashita
I found a beautiful seashell.

左のポケットにぎりしめ
hidari no poketto ni girishime
Grasping it tightly in my left pocket,

家に急いで帰りました
uchi ni isoide kaerimashita
I hurried back home.

蛍光灯の明かりの下
keikoutou no akari no moto
Beneath the glow of fluorescent light

くらがりとしじまの中
kuragari to shijima no naka
Within the dark and the silence--

く〇たしげたかが窓の外で
kurita shigetaka ga mado no soto de
Shigetaka Ku██ta is outside my window

ぼくを見ていました
boku o miteimashita
Watching me

何も言わず窓にはりついて
nani mo iwazu mado ni haritsuite
Staying close to the window without saying anything,

じいと見つめている
jiito mitsumete iru
blankly staring

く〇たしげたかが窓を通り抜けて
kurita shigetaka ga mado o torinukete
Shigetaka Ku██ta is coming through my window

入ってきた
haitte kita
And now he's inside

何も言わずただとなりにいる
nani mo iwazu tada tonari ni iru
He's just standing next to me without saying anything.

ぼくはどうしたら良いのでしょう？
boku wa doushitara ii no deshou?
What should I do now?

Notes

What do you think of the song? I think it's pretty funny that Kurita isn't actually dangerous and that the speaker is just wondering what he should do now that he's peacefully inside the house. And the fact that the shell by the torii might not have had anything to do with Kurita.

By the way, the lyrics data I translated is from the UTAU song database. They use the lyrics that are typed out in the video. There are slight differences between the video's text and the words that are actually sung.

The mistake that might exist in this translation is the follow-through on the tense of the original. There are two points where the lyrics are originally written in the past tense, but I chose to translate them in the present tense for clarity. These lines are "ぼくを見ていました" and "入ってきた".

"ぼくを見ていました" is literally "watched me" and "入ってきた" is literally "came in". But the rest of the lines in these parts of the song are in the present tense, and the speaker starts to recount what is happening as it happens, rather than providing context (finding the shell). Time "steps forward" between each stanza.

But the flow of the story isn't really kept in English if I translate the first phrase of the chorus as "Kurita Shigetaka was outside my window, watching me". We assume from that statement, he's either left or is already inside the house, which ruins the punchline of the song and the surprise of Kurita's head bouncing through the box (recontextualized as a window pane) in the MV.

It's possible that's a bigger goof than I realize, but given that it's a meme song and parody of songs like ヤツメ穴, which also tell stories with a twist ending, I felt comfortable publishing it like this to maintain the feel. If you have thoughts, please message me!

What is SAPARi?

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

SAPARi was a Sony virtual world/3D chatroom that ballooned in popularity when it was preinstalled on Sony VAIO devices in the late 90's and early 2000's. Primarily developed by Tsunetake Noma, who was at that point an employee of Sony's Computer Science Laboratory, it launched on February 6th, 1997 and promptly died on September 1st, 2001 when Sony switched the service to a montly paid model via So-net.

SAPARi experienced its first ever explosion in interest on the english-speaking internet in late 2020 when an Osamu Sato fan server stumbled upon SAPARi, a game with somewhat similar aesthetics to the PS1 game LSD Dream Simulator. They started a Discord server, and a second wave of users would arrive in early 2021 when the "home of obscure creatures" Twitter account retweeted a screenshot of the game recieved as a submission.

SAPARi intruiges me personally for a few reasons. First, its birth in the Sony CSL mirrors another one of my longest-standing interests: the lab's robotics research. The money Sony spent at the time cultivating slightly off-the-wall capsules of 90's futurism was absurd in retrospect.

In addition, SAPARi's existence as a VRML tool is an amazing time capsule of what early internet users imagined the web would be. The idea that parallels to physical spaces would embody the internet user's experience is an idea that is antiquated by today's standards, but still retains merit. By imbuing our technology with distinctly human characteristics, we might be able to create better systems. This is something we can learn from VRML worlds like SAPARi.

Information of interest

1000 player cap

The version of the Community Bureau server software distributed to the public and with the book Late Night VRML is labelled as a BETA but is probably more akin to a demo. The maximum player connections is 13 for the B1, B2 and B3 versions of the server and a mere 3 for the evaluation version. We are effectively playing a trial version of SAPARi. Finding the production server software would allow us to run SAPARi at a large scale for everyone.

Canadian professor

A point of confusion early on was whether or not the "canadian professor" referenced on Koko's page is relevant to the search for further SAPARi content.

Well, here's the good news: I know who the professor is! And here's the bad news: the "file sharing" server isn't some chance encounter with a team member that uploaded an old drive for safekeeping. The man in question is Professor Bernie Roehl of ECE at University of Waterloo. The file upload is the CD-ROM that came with a book he was a contributor for: Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java. The file itself was likely present as an example of what could be done with VRML and Sony's Community Place software and is the identical to the software that was distributed on Sony's official website.

Where is CPB ver 2 BETA 3?

An archive of a Sony page lists a newer version of the Community Place Bureau than we have access to, but the executable was never archived. Does this file exist anywhere online?

Relevant links

Unofficial SAPARi Discord server: The place most of this kicked off in the first place.
dr9nu: A simple install guide for SAPARi.
community-place Neocities
さぱり: The archived version of the official SAPARi website.

the ascii garden

Returning to Dayton (Hamvention 2026)

The ARISS booth

Beyond the table

The outreach subject

Point A to Point B

The website is back!!

AIBO Therapy 2.0

Downloads

Fourier Analysis on the Crypton SUPER PACK

Assertion

Data Description

tS a_4

M’ M_4

Analysis

ERS-1000 Networking (and API)

Networking nitty-gritties

Information from AIBO (hontai)

AIBO's personality

Error codes

Model numbers

Bizarre discoveries and funny comeuppances

【ボイドロイド】が訳してみた

ボイドロイド

voidroid

Notes

【く〇たしげたかがまどからみている】が訳してみた

く〇たしげたかがまどからみている

sm40772073

Shigetaka Ku██ta is watching from my window

Notes

What is SAPARi?

Information of interest

1000 player cap

Canadian professor

Where is CPB ver 2 BETA 3?

Relevant links