Why I wear old clothes

I haven't bought any clothes since I moved to Japan. That means everything I wear I either got for Christmas, or I brought from the US over a year ago. Why? Is it because I'm too poor/cheap to buy new clothes? No! I go shopping for clothes quite often. But I always come back empty handed. I drew a diagram to explain part of the problem: selection!

A typical Japanese mall has a horrible ratio of men to womens clothing. Half the men's clothing is brand name suits and other ridiculously expensive things I can't afford, and the other half is thickly coated with Japanese 'hip' style (my favorite new addition: fake double shirts. It looks like layered shirts but its really just one! why God why?). There is usually more space devoted to furniture in a MALL than men's clothing. And to make things even better, on the rare occasions I actually do find something decent, it rarely fits. But I suppose that's my problem.

Someone call the patent office

So I haven't been posting lately because I feel like I'm in the middle of my vacation summary, but I just don't feel like writing anymore about it. So I guess it's over.

Anyway. I had an idea today for a feature I would love to see in advanced cell phones.

GPS + Voice Recognition

Think of it. First, you mark places with custom labels such as home, work, the movie store, or any place. The location can be marked with multiple points and serves as a general area.

Then you can tell your phone something like this:
"Remind me when I leave work to call Jane" or "Remind me when I get home to clean the bathroom"

It would listen for the words you used to mark the locations, and key words like "when" and "leave" and it could just repeat the recording at the time the event occurs. "Remind me [when] I [leave] [work] to --> call Jane <--" When the GPS detects the phone has left "work" it buzzes and says "call Jane"

Of course you wouldn't even need GPS for some obvious things. I wish setting alarms was this easy:
"Remind me at 5pm tonight to go home!" or "Wake me up at 7 tomorrow morning"

These things are all quite possible with modern technology. For once I really hope someone steals my ideas.

Vacation Part 2: Bremen

From Germany we took the train to Bremen, Germany. It is one of the few cities in Northern Germany to not be heavily damaged during the war. Below is the train station, which I thought looked cool enough for a picture.

This building is (I think) what used to be the Rathaus or government center. It is right across from the church (two towers visible in the following picture) and in the middle of the famous town square. We ate lunch across from this building and the church. It seems like everyone eats lunch outside in Germany, which I really like with the weather we had. I never see this in Japan, especially in Tokyo. I once went to a beer garden in Shinjuku, but it was on the top of a building.

The building at the end of this street is the one in the picture above, and the two towers are the church. I love wide open streets with shops that aren't cluttered by cars. This is another great European tradition I wish I saw more of in Japan and America.


This windmill was visible from a bridge . There are paintings set up larger than a person that seem like they might still be in progress. Very pretty.

Window shopping for meat and cheese. The vast array of meats, cheeses and breads made me miss Germany before even getting off the plane. I found myself looking in bakeries all around where I lived only to leave each one empty handed and disheartened. I suppose it could be the water or humidity that prevent good bread from being made if it didn't last very long. At least I hope there's a good reason, because the bread here just doesn't cut it.


More to come!

Vacation Part 1: Amsterdam

I've been busy lately. It all started over a month ago when I went to Nagano to teach for 4 days. I had a great time but it was a lot of work. The man who hired me put me up in his guest room and his wife fed me three big healthy and delicious meals a day. I taught three groups: 2nd grade (with some 1st graders), 5th grade and 4 old ladies (one of them not so old). This ran about 6 hours a day in 2-2.5 hour classes. It was exhausting, but rewarding at the same time.

The day after getting back from Nagano, I flew to Amsterdam. This is the view from the hotel room:

We walked around a lot and I noticed that Amsterdam is the dirtiest city I've ever seen. There are good reasons for this, like the huge amount of tourists, but that doesn't change the fact that I would never want to live there. I guess it falls in the same catagory as London and New York for me.

We stopped to brake our fast at a nice little place with some omelets on toast and some delicious coffee.
This is just a random picture of scenery around a canal. The canal systems were all planned and built a long time ago. There are four main arcs and some parallel canals that were built like a giant windshield wiper from one side to the other. The four main arcs all lead to the bigger body of water.
We toured the Heineken museum and had quite a few beers. I'm not the biggest fan of Heine but after the first two they start getting better and better. This brewery wasn't in use very long because Amsterdam expanded quickly after it was built and it was too hard to get trucks to and from it.

Cheers.

We saw other museums like the Rijk's Museum and the Van Gogh Museum. I liked the Rijk's Musuem but I'm not a huge fan of Van Gogh. I enjoy looking at old books and music, artifacts and some styles of paintings. I like Rembrandt and the Rijk's had quite a bit. After Amsterdam we went to Bremin, Germany. I decided not to come back to Amsterdam for the last leg of my trip because it was so expensive and dirty.

Internet Voting

My old computer security prof at UC Davis, Matt Bishop, was in the news. The University of California did a study on the security of California approved voting machines and it appears that the machines failed miserably. They were even hackable from the voting terminals themselves.

I'm sure that they are better than the machines used during the last presidential election, though. I did a project on voting machines for a computer ethics class about how bad the system was. Votes were tallied on node machines which were unprotected. The votes were tallied in an unencrypted text file. People in my class said they thought a big conspiracy of vote manipulation was far fetched. They missed the point that it would take just one person five minutes or less to change thousands of votes with notepad. Sorry.. too lazy to find links at the moment.

Some things to think about

Religion:
This is a good article I came across just now: Losing My Jihadism.

Anthropology:
I also read this blog every now and then because of posts like this.

Technology:
Google is leading the way (followed by other big names like Yahoo!) in killing the horrible duopoly of internet service in the US by pledging to bid 4.6 Billion dollars on a new spectrum if the goverment forces the "owner of the spectrum bands to allow access to any device, meaning that users would not be locked into subscribing to a carrier in order to use a mobile device, such as a smartphone." I knew I wasn't the only one upset about having to choose between cable internet with TV I don't want and DSL with a phone plan I don't want.

Politics:
The US candidates for the presidency are embracing technology to try and get their messages out and have meaningful debates that answer questions from real people. People sent a massive amount of videos into YouTube to ask the candidates real questions about a variety of issues. A small number are going to be played in a debate.

Meanwhile, Japan is still using campaign law from the 50's. The use of internet for campaigning is illegal in Japan. Here's a choice quote from a Japanese student: "YouTube is more casual; you watch music videos or funny videos on it, but if the government or any politicians are on the web it doesn't feel right." Give me a break! I don't even know where to begin on what's wrong with this statement. Instead, let me mend this quote for a bit of perspective: "The TV is more casual; you watch music videos or funny videos on it, but if the government or any politicians are on the TV it doesn't feel right."

So if they can't use the internet, Japanese politicians can hand out information, right? Wrong. Pamphlets can only be passed out to 3% of the voters. The only way they can get their message out is the old fashioned loudspeaker. Let me be perfectly clear: I HATE the loudspeaker. I really loathe the intrusive and relentless noise blasting at every major train station in Tokyo. I can handle some people bowing and handing out pamphlets, but turn the damn speaker off! I literally could not hold a conversation a hundred meters away from some political speaker near the exit of Ikebukuro station in Tokyo. Come on people! Organize a venue at a stadium or park and get people who want to listen to come! I miss the laws against noise pollution in the US.

上野 Ueno

One of the places I hang out the most is Ueno. There is a park, a zoo, some museums, and lots of places to eat and hang out. It's pretty close (20 minutes by train) to where I live. I wouldn't say
I love Ueno, but I certainly am getting used to it. Here are a couple pictures taken from the park.



There is a museum of Western Art here with a lot of famous works such as the ladies in the boat, and the thinker. No pictures are allowed inside, so I just shot the copies outside. The actual thinker is quite small, which surprised me. This is an enlarged copy.

Exciting Weekend

It's been an exciting weekend from mother nature. Yesterday was one of the strongest Typhoons to hit Japan in decades and the strongest on record in July. It was supposed to hit Tokyo, but changed directions and went North East. 4 or 5 people are dead or missing.

Just 20 minutes ago I felt my first earthquake. It was level 6 in Niigata-ken, which is north west of here on the coast. In Tokyo it was level 3. I found myself just sitting here not quite knowing what to do. If it were more serious I could go under my table, but my first instinct was to see if it was on the news. I feel a bit sea sick.

In Japan...

• The sun is red.
• The moon is yellow.
• The traffic light is blue.
• People don't hand money to the cashier, they put it down on a tray for the cashier to pick up.
• People don't make eye contact with strangers on the street, let alone say hello.
• Slurping ramen isn't just polite, it is the only way to eat ramen.
• Fruit is expensive and each one is perfect. No touching unless you're buying.
• Cigarettes and beer are sold in vending machines.
• Living with one's family until marriage, even past the age of thirty, is common. It also creates a lot of disposable income that boosts the market for gadgets and clothes.
• Walking while eating is rude.
• Fixed Do solfege is taught in schools and every child plays the recorder.

It could happen

Imagine a computer in another universe. This computer is so powerful and can hold/manipulate so much data, that it can simulate an entire universe the size of our own. Someone just needs to create the initial starting conditions and rules and set it in motion. It would be like an infinitely more complex version of Conway's game of life. If such complex simulations were possible, is the simulation of the universe any different from the actual universe? Is a simulation of life the same thing as life itself? I mean down to the smallest particles, of course. I think the difference is negligible. If living creates were replicated so exactly in a computer, it is essentially the same as the real thing.

A computational system capable of such a feat, while amazing, would have to be staggeringly more advanced to do anything realistic with the data it computes. It is relatively simple to apply basic laws and rules to a system, but to analyze and see what things are arising in the system is exponentially more difficult. If our universe is a simulation, which I think isn't impossible given a larger universe with more resources (storing more data than we have particles), it is unlikely that whoever created the simulation is even aware of our existence. Such a tiny speck in time and space, sentient life has probably gone unnoticed in this demonstration. We might even be just the beta version. Maybe light was supposed to go faster.