I'm back!

To-do risuto

Add: I started using Google Calendar today. Much better than this list =P. Here's the feed.

'x' means done, while '-' means not 'x'.

Moving from apartment:
x clean room
x pack and move to aunt's house

Company:
x work evaluation
x work report evaluation
x application for pension plan lump-sum withdrawal
x farewell speech

Gifts/requested items:
x peanut butter for Silph
x Magic cards for Alan
x Aquarius for Bao
x iPod nano for sister
x high-end shaver for father
x electronic thermometer for mother
x Gundam modeling books for Paul

Visit:
x Chiba University
- Akina downhill
x Akihabara (electric town)

Misc.:
x cancel gym membership
x cancel cell phone

Auld Lang Syne's a playing

Work'll soon come to a close, and then I'll have about a week to boldly go where I haven't gone before. I'm scrapping the FAQ idea: it's too time-consuming! I tried a new Pokémon game involving playing as a kid transformed into a Pokémon. You get a Pokémon pal too -- I chose (read: choose you) Pikachu! Yeah, that didn't last long. Then I tried a Rockman RPG, but that failed as well. So I give up.

I'm welcoming suggestions for where I should travel to in my last week. Anyone know cool places/things to do around Tokyo? I'm sure some of you do. Yeah, the only conditions are that it's around Tokyo (< 2 hour train) and that it doesn't cost a fortune. =)

Oh yeah, the title of this post. Japanese stores have a habit of playing Auld Lang Syne when they're about to close, and I thought that it fits this time quite well.

Personality awareness

So there's this thing called the "Johari window." Basically you describe yourself using a few words from a set, let aquaintances describe you using the same set, then compare the results for some earth-shocking revelation.

And here's my Johari window -- fill it out if you have time! My Nohari window might be more fun though (thanks Wen for pointing this out) ;). If you're interested in this kind of thing like I am you can make one too, and I'll be sure to fill it out.

Add: The "bad" traits are in the Nohari.
Add: I see two glaring flaws: first, the provided vocabulary is inadequate (Ray pointed this out), especially in describing "bad" qualities; and second, people tend to be laudatory or at least anodyne on these things (note: this is kinda forced by the first flaw). I believe these flaws render this "window" unreliable for personality assessment. You might get a kick out of it though.

The complexities of queries

I had this thought while buying strawberries at the local supermarket. Don't ask me why. Wait -- actually that's somewhat relevant. Inspired by computability theories, I was pondering if I could separate the five W's and an H into complexity classes. While carrying the groceries home, I gave it some analysis. Let me proffer my findings.

Let's start with the "easiest" queries. 'Where' and 'when' seem to be the simplest class of questions. In effect, the two are the same thanks to modern physics' space-time. Given that the answer is known, all that is required to relay the info is a vector v=(x, y, z, time), provided with a reference point in space-time. Let's call this class of queries Q1.

Next is 'who' and 'what'. It's obvious that 'who' is just an application of 'what' to human beings. To see why these are of higher complexity than 'where' and 'when', imagine relaying the answer to the querier when you've found it. You would need to describe it. The object o you are describing has characteristics; you could describe them by c = c1, c2, c3, ... etc. This may seem to be of the same complexity as Q1, the only difference that v is of variable length. Yet c may conceivably be infinite or undefined. For example, the answer to the question "what is the meaning of x?" The answer may furthermore depend on the entity which posed the question. This delves into the area of philosophy regarding the nature of truth: is it absolute, subjective, or something else? This I'm afraid is beyond the scope of this post. Let's call this class Q2.

Separating the last two types of queries is hard. Is 'how' simpler than 'why?' I believe so. 'How' (excepting cases like "how come", which is a colloquial way of asking 'why') requests a list or sequence of events that effect an outcome. One could then see this as an extension of Q2: each component in c, the descriptor, would be answers to Q2 or Q1 queries. For example, c1 would contain the first 'event' that triggers the outcome referred to by the 'how' query. This c1 itself is an descriptor to the Q2 query "what is the first event?" In this sense 'how' could be seen as an extension of Q2. Let's call it Q2x.

The remaining query is 'why.' Intuitively one can appreciate the difficulty of 'why' by comparing two oracles, one which can answer any of the above classes of queries, and one which answers 'why'. Which do you think is more intelligent? This shows that we humans in a sense respect the question 'why'. I believe that 'why' has supernatural connotations associated with it. An entity that could give 'why' answers in general would be viewed as a god. 'Why' also gives rise to questions for which even the existence of an answer is undeterminable. This contrasts with Q1 for example, since even if we don't know the answer to "where is x", we know that an answer exists.

What's ironic is that although past classes were each supersets of its prior class, the supernaturally difficult 'why' is not a superclass of Q2x but is simply unrelated. An oracle that answers 'why' cannot provide answers to even Q1 queries. "Why is the location of x?" No good, regardless of how it's phrased. 'Why' is in a superclass of its own; let's designate it W.

I posit a very coarse analogy of 'why' to the unsolvable problems in real complexity theory. The "hard but solvable" problems like the NP-complete ones could be Q2x or Q2.

So in essence, I find W ('why') to be in a realm of its own, and the class relationship Q2x ('how') > Q2 ('what', 'who') > Q1 ('where', 'when'). So... why did I chance upon this thought while buying strawberries? Too hard to answer, sorry. =P

Things to do before I leave

I'm compiling a list of things I should do before I leave. Suggestions are welcome. Here's what I've got so far.

• visit Mt. Haruna (Akina) of Initial D fame
• write a FAQ for a recently released Japanese game
• buy a pack of Japanese Magic cards
• buy a bottle of Aquarius
• buy some peanut butter
  

Kyoto pics

Here are pics of beautiful wintertime Kyoto. It may be cumbersome but by following this adventure log and this map you can get a good idea of what my adventure was like. The pics have timestamps that correspond with the appropriate log entry for easy searching.

The most memorable places were Kyoto University, where I interviewed a prof, the pristine Ginkakuji garden, the grand Kyoto station, and the serene night scenery. Also very memorable were my aching legs that bore me over 40 km that day.


10:20 - Kyoto station. I should have taken pics of the inside; it's really grand with a view like Terminal 3 of Pearson airport. There's also a large department store there with escalators arranged so that it looks like one really long escalator (ie. not overlaid on top of each other). Quite breathtaking.


10:55 - Nishi-honganji temple.


11:55 - Kiyomizu temple.


12:10 - Maiko girls on the way to Gion.


12:20 - Gion pool.


12:20 - Wish board at Gion. There is one that says, "Please let Mr. Asakawa meet a good person."


1:50 - Kyoto University. The construction sorta ruins the pic, but oh well. This building is the easily recognized clockwork tower, and the tree in front of it is the university's crest.


3:25 - A peculiar work of art at Ginkakuji.


3:25 - A beautiful spring/stream/waterfall in the Ginkakuji garden.


3:25 - The Ginkakuji itself.


5:00 - Kyoto Imperial Palace.

Hope this was enjoyable!

Japan pics from 2003

Here are nine select pics from my previous stay in Japan. Photos of Kyoto will come soon in a separate post :)



Let the pics form a 3x3 matrix:
(1,1) athletics festival at a primary school, Kanamachi, Tokyo
(1,2) precipice, Enoshima, Kamakura
(1,3) misty ravine, Okutama, Tokyo
(2,1) fishing lodge, Okutama
(2,2) view of harbor, Enoshima
(2,3) sunset, Enoshima
(3,1) precarious crossing in storm, Okutama (flooding claimed two lives that day)
(3,2) costume party, Harajuku, Tokyo
(3,3) preparing sushi rice, Mejiro, Tokyo

Happy hundredth post

Wahoo, 100th post! Now is there anything to blog about, hmm...

I began composing my work report today, cancelled my gym membership, and had a long conversation with my mother. What else... I watched Mai-Hime on TV today. It's okay but I see the production quality isn't on the same level as say Fullmetal Alchemist. Nothing sets it apart from other magic school-girl anime. I have numerous complaints: lack of memorable music, overly done fanservice, mediocre fight scenes, insubstantial character development (ok, I only watched one episode), narrow range of character expressions and finally predictable actions and outcomes.

There goes my aunt again

My aunt's notorious in our family for her spending habits. I went back to Tokyo on the weekend and found that she bought a $42,000 grand piano. What's more, it was an impulse purchase, made on the spot at some exhibition downtown. I suppose she has high hopes for my cousin, who is just 13 years old. Well, now he's one of the few kids in the world to get a brand new Bechstein grand piano for casual play.

Tagged!

I'm it I guess. =)

Four jobs I've had:
1. Software developer - Seiko Epson Group
2. Calculus II tutor/marker - Universty of Waterloo
3. Localization developer - Roxio (bought by Sonic Solutions while I was still there)
4. Systems engineer - Watanabe Seisakusho

Four movies I can watch (and have the potential to watch) over and over:
(I don't like to watch any over and over, but if I had to pick...)
1. The Lord of the Rings
2. Memento
3. Mulholland Drive
4. The Lion King

Four places I've lived (if vacations don't count):
1. Shanghai (also vacationed)
2. Tokyo (also vacationed)
3. Greater Toronto Area
4. Waterloo

Four TV Shows I love(d):
1. Star Trek: The Next Generation
2. Frasier
3. CSI (all locations)
4. Everybody Loves Raymond

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Chicago
2. Kyoto
3. Montreal
4. New York

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Pan pizza
2. Fresh sushi and sashimi (must be fresh)
3. Crab cake baked inside the shell
4. Good curry with some meat

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Blogs
2. Utopia
3. the Inquirer
4. Wikipedia

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. England
2. Taiwan
3. Roppongi (or anywhere closer to central Tokyo)
4. Outer space (in a spaceship of course)

Four bloggers I'm tagging:
1. Kevin
2. Jia (maybe multiple tags will make him do it.. :P)
3. Paul
4. The other co-ops in Japan

Rainy day

It rained the whole day today. After work I went to the supermarket and bought some groceries. I wanted them to stay dry, so I uncomfortably held the grocery bags under my umbrella. Then it came to me that I could just hook the bags onto the umbrella's bottom "hook" thing. That way the groceries will be in the middle of the umbrella's shelter. Bystanders started staring at me though, as if I was cooking sashimi or something.

Intel's new naming scheme

I've gotta give kudos to Intel's marketing gurus for their new branding scheme. They've turned their logo inside out -- the "inside" in "intel inside" is now outside. They've faithfully followed the trend of CPU design, emphasizing multiple cores over megahertz. So what does Intel decide to call a CPU with a single core? Core Solo! A CPU with two cores? Core Duo. You see, a single core will have to solo all the instructions challenging it. Very appropriately named indeed. Continuing the trend, a CPU with 40 cores in the near future shall be called Core Raid.
















And what about an overheating CPU? Molten Core! Ah okay, I'll stop there. =P

川の流れのように

"Kawa no nagare no youni" is one of the most famous Japanese songs. Here's a mp3. This remix is a bit cheezy and overdone but it's the only one I could find.

And here goes my attempt at translating it.

川の流れのように
知らず知らず　歩いてきた (Without knowing, I have walked here)
細く長い　この道 (Oh, how narrow and long, this road)
振り返れば　遥か遠く (If I turn and look back now)
故郷が見える (I can see my hometown, far far away)
でこぼこ道や　曲がりくねった道 (Over bumpy roads, winding roads)
地図さえない　それもまた人生 (Without even a map, but again that's life)
ああ　川の流れのように　ゆるやかに (Ahh, like the flow of a river)
いくつも　時代は過ぎて (Gently do the times pass us by)
ああ　川の流れのように　とめどなく (Ahh, like the flow of a river, ceaselessly)
空が黄昏に　染まるだけ (The sky becomes dyed with twilight)

Time to time to time to

What is time? We treat it as obvious knowledge, yet we lack a solid answer. We define units of time, measure time, but we cannot manipulate time. In contemporary physics, time may be unified with space into spacetime, but it's definitely not akin to the spatial dimensions.

I'm now 22. I'll never be 21 again.

What's life? Why am I here? Should I do something before I turn 23? 24? Age, and hence time, scare me. We're so helpless: Tick. Tick. Tick...

I like how this Enka song captures life and time. It sets a deep and mildly melancholic mood apt for reflection. Enka tends to do this kind of thing very well.

川の流れのように (trans. "Like how the river flows") by 美空ひばり

知らず知らず　歩いてきた
細く長い　この道
振り返れば　遥か遠く
故郷が見える
でこぼこ道や　曲がりくねった道
地図さえない　それもまた人生
ああ　川の流れのように　ゆるやかに
いくつも　時代は過ぎて
ああ　川の流れのように　とめどなく
空が黄昏に　染まるだけ

I'll translate it and find an mp3 soon.

Coming back on April 20th

47 more work days. (>/^.^)>//

Addition to coin collection

I haven't been up to much lately. I did buy an expensive coin, the 2000 Library of Congress Bimetallic Ten Dollar. Its composition is 1/4 oz Au, 1/4 oz Pt. Here's a scan.

I started playing Utopia, or rather, nostalgia. The last time I played was Grade 10. I doubt anyone from back then (Paul, Roddy) is playing, but if you are, say hello or attack me. :P I'm on Legends 28:39; my place will be easy to figure out.

Then there's work. Work is interesting: I'm applying some theorems and skills I acquired in Graph Theory and CS241. And my coworkers like it. They like software that's better than the open-source alternatives. They like proofs of upper-bound running times and novel approaches to old problems. Work is great! Some things I'm doing may be good grad school material.

Oh, and I've been dreaming a lot. Long, coherent, narrative, sometimes poetic dreams in vivid technicolour. Like Kevin dreams. I wonder why... :P

Great but banned ad from Microsoft

Here's one of the best ads I've seen in a while. It certainly brought back some childhood memories and the kid within me... I remember doing that and imagining stuff like that when I was bored with school.

In defense of gifted education

Let's start with a question: are we all created equal?

No.

Well, it really depends on what "born equal" means. If the meaning is taken to be "all men are born equal in dignity and rights" then it is yes. If the meaning is taken to be "all men are born with equal intellectual abilities" then the answer is a hard no. Some are offended by this, but let me pose some questions. Are we born equally tall? Physically strong? Beautiful? No of course, right? These are much less contentious. So why is intelligence so touchy? I think the answer is because in our society, intelligence is highly correlated with success.

The idea that some cannot achieve a high level of success almost regardless of how hard they try is denied by many. Yet studies show that this is very true. I'm not going to use footnotes since Wikipedia has already done that for us. Back on topic, studies show that IQ is the best predictor of future performance. Now this doesn't mean that IQ is a good indicator of future success, it just means it beats all the others. So before the smart ones start wearing a grin, remember that there is no substitute for hard work. Or is there?

Contrary to what most others may believe, I think there is a very good substitute for hard work, and I think that is high IQ (work is still needed, just not hard work). High IQ babies look at a novel object and get bored with a few glances, while average babies will be intrigued for much longer. Years later, the high IQ babies become schoolchildren and are bored with their lessons, their teachers, and probably their classmates as well. They'll think "d'oh, Mrs. Campbell is teaching that again for the 14th time" and begin daydreaming, doodling -- whatever relieves them of their boredom. If kept in such a stultifying environment, these minds will not attain their true potential. They will still do better on average than their peers but the point is that they do not reach their potential.

We want to nuture our bright minds, since it is known that a well-educated people fare better economically and hence we invest in education. So what's the best way to invest though? I think having a good gifted education program is essential to investing this money properly. Now, the main point coming from people that oppose gifted education is that it segregates the children, and violates the widely accepted clause of "all men are born equal." After all, why should these gifted children receive more resources (like better teachers) and therefore more investment money? This is where we go back to the question posed at the beginning of this post. Simply, we are not created equal when it comes to intelligence!

Here's a hastily thought-up analogy:

Basketball is what determines success and thus basketball teams, that of nations.
We want to invest in out nation's basketball team.
We want teach our children basketball, for a great team in the future.

Now, do we

• spend equal resources on short children as very tall children? Illogical isn't it? The tall kids will be bored; they may start lifting the ball above their heads and grinning at the stunted kids frantically jumping. They tall ones will not develop their skills.
  

• spend more resources on our very tall children? Logical isn't it? You know that the future all-stars will be tall. No, not all the tall kids will be excellent players, but the best players will be tall. In analogy with IQ, height isn't a great indicator of future basketball performance, but it is nevertheless the best indicator. Thus it is statistically wise to specially nuture our very tall children.

Sorry, this post is probably disorganized and unclear, but I don't feel like cleaning it up. =P
Time to sleep. Cha!

New year, new post

Yes, very late, but happy New Near! 新年あけおめ！

Sorry for not posting. I've been caught up in "family" things: a cousin from Shanghai is visiting, and my aunt opened up a restaurant. The weather is fine here, around 9 in the daytime and 4 in the evening.

I got Bao's awesome anime package in the mail a week or so ago, filled with food for slacking. After feasting, I started to think about Canada, about home. And the more I thought the more I came to miss it. Oh, in the vast fields of white (with some brown and black on the roadsides [ed.: don't spoil the image]) how I long to roll! T_T

Today, I decided when my last day of work would be: April 14th. I'm thinking of flying home around April 18-20th. I hope Bao's house is open from April 19-21st to May 1st... =P

In my spare time I was shopping and exploring Tokyo with my two cousins, playing games (Golden Sun 2, Civilization IV, Freespace 2, Freelancer, Super Mario RPG, Lego Star Wars, Windows Vista's Chess), eating too much, and eating too much too much [ed.: hard to read].

I also tried a new IQ test by highiqsociety.org, the Teaching Assistant Cubed, and got a questionable result. I tried it again and got 134. @_@