I decided to hold of on making this post for a while... about a week now but I believe that it is now appropriate to do so.
Last Sunday was Mike's farewell party as his time as he will be returning back to MIT to continue his studies. A beach party was organized by him were we could get together and have a BBQ and hang out. What transpired was very unexpected.
A Post-Doctoral student from China came to join the lab last month, his name is Dr. Jin. I never really had the chance to talk to him that much though I did see him around the lab from time to time. Dr. Jin had come out to join us for Mike's farewell party; it was also a good opportunity to meet and intereact with other people at the lab.
Though he enjoyed swimming, it would be his first time swimming in the Pacific ocean. The water was choppy that day and there were other people around at the time, he went off to go swimming but he would not return after 2 hours. After most other people had left the waters swimming, we were unable to find him.
For you as the reader, you probably know how this story is going to play out. For me at the time, I had no idea. Some people went out an hour earlier to go look for him but did not find him. Others from the group were called into join. While searching for an hour, there was a notable panic in a few people's eyes... for me, I could not declare a person missing after 2 hours of being away, especially for an adult.
A helicopter flew in over us with some of the members waving at the helicopter... I thought it was overkill, soon after a patrol boat arrived. It seems that the members made the call to the coast guard made the right call... I would not have made that call until much later. Searching continues for 2~3 hours with helicopters and patrol boat with no luck. The police, ambulence and even the news crew came out, unfortunately all of them were pretty useless and I was quite displeased.
I wasn't around when the police came around as I was looking around on the beach but eventually returned to find them there. When I got there, they were busy taking names of the members of our group and asking questions. What they asked were things like "did he drink before going swimming? where was the last time did you see him? When did he go in" and things like that. There were atleast 10 of them at the beach. What did they do afterwards? They just stood around looking at their notes. I was incredibly unhappy about this, if you're going to stand around like that then get out there and LOOK. You got the information you needed and you aren't gathering anything more, *do something about it.* That didn't happen.
The news crew came out after and started asking the same kind of questions. What they were most interested in hearing was whether if he was drinking when he went into the water. What are you people trying to do? A person is missing, this isn't the time for a "story!" Unless you are going to do something useful like getting word out and getting people, then great, if not, then what's the point? To do nothing but talk is disgraceful (literaly in the sence of "no grace").
What did they do? They went out to the ocean to take pictures of the crashing water, took pictures of us looking for Dr. Jin they even had the nerve to come out and take pictures of distressed members of our group. I can't seem to get a good image of news reporters at the moment, but I can clearly say this much, it is far better to act then to sit around talking about things. If perhaps the news inspired people to do so, I may hold them with higher regard... but for all I can imagine of a story with crashing waves and unhappy people, what good is this?
I would leave Sendai the day after to Utsunomiya to begin my internship with the hopes of Dr. Jin being found well. I would recieve a phone call today and a messege informing that his body has been found, 10 km South of where we were, the cause is unknown. I was somewhat prepared for this, though sad I was not shocked. I recieved word from one of my labmates and contacted her, she is currently corresponding with his family to figure out what to do. After talking with her, I can tell the impact this has had on her... she was also called out to identify the body and knows Dr. Jin better than I. I feel bad that I don't feel as sad as her, but what am I to do?
The funeral will be held this Saturday in Sendai. Though I had plans to climb mount Fuji this weekend; after consideration I have decided that I will not return to Sendai to attend. After talking with my friend, I don't see much else I can do and prefer not to just attend a funeral ceremony. This is not to say that I will not attend funerals in general, I would not like to attend a ceremony like this if I can't help or make people feel better. Weather permitting, I will pay my respects from the top of Mt. Fuji.
From what little I have met of Dr. Jin, he is a kind and friendly man. As tough it might be to find himself in a new culture with little knowledge of Japanese, myself and others found it easy to welcome his presence.
I would like to end on this:
Life is for those that choose to take action - it is insufficient to to only watch or listen. As important as these activies are, to only do so will have your life or a life will vanish before you in many senses of the meaning.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Got Root?
I am now in Utsunomiya on internship and I am currently at the dorm leeching internet from some wireless access point that has no security setup. I managed to guess the IP of the router and after guessing at some passwords and login names, I gave up... then my browser spat out an error at me in Japanese (translated) "The login is root, the password is case sensitive." I try "root" with no password and bang, I'm in to fiddle with the connection settings -- I'm routing all ports to my computer to get some bit torrent action going.
Ha! These people at the company that I'm working for told me that I'd have no internet at the dorm... muah ha ha ha ha. Well time to get a compiler... I'm going to need it for work tomorrow. Turns out that I might be able to automate some equipment and save a few people 2 hours worth of work everytime they use some thermal expansion measuring machine. More details later... too many things going on.
Ha! These people at the company that I'm working for told me that I'd have no internet at the dorm... muah ha ha ha ha. Well time to get a compiler... I'm going to need it for work tomorrow. Turns out that I might be able to automate some equipment and save a few people 2 hours worth of work everytime they use some thermal expansion measuring machine. More details later... too many things going on.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Presentation Slides Complete
I have as of now, finished making my presentation slides for my in house lab presentation 3 weeks from now. My presentation weighs in at 40 slides and my goal is to do this presentation in under an hour. The material covered in each slide is not dense which should allow me to whip through them fast and concentrate on the results of my work. I have data from 4 sets of experiments I would like to discuss.
I still have to provide a hand out to the lab on my work. I will aim to provide 4 pages of material for the hand outs and leave it at that. It should take me approximately 2~3 days to do working at a moderate pace. I still have to make some images for the handouts which maybe a little time consuming.
Hopefully I'll have everything down by this weekend and can concentrate on my internship and fun on the weekends.
I still have to provide a hand out to the lab on my work. I will aim to provide 4 pages of material for the hand outs and leave it at that. It should take me approximately 2~3 days to do working at a moderate pace. I still have to make some images for the handouts which maybe a little time consuming.
Hopefully I'll have everything down by this weekend and can concentrate on my internship and fun on the weekends.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
This will be a busy next 3 weeks
My objective for this week is to complete my presentation materials for my in-lab presentation this Saturday by Friday, 3 weeks in advance as I will be going on internship for 3 weeks in Utsunomiya at a department of Sumitomo Corporation. The objective for this presentation is to present my 4 months of work in under an hour.
Most presenters typically go for more than hour, though some people that don't have a lot to say might be faster. My goal will be to cover my matieral with people being able to understand the important parts of my reserach and what I have done. I'm already 30 slides into my presentation and I only worked for 3 hours today. I still will have to make more slides. Fortunately, most of these slides have lots of pictures.
As for my internship, I be working in a branch doing R&D on conductive polymers of Sumitomo Corporation. These polymers have applications in flexible displays. Though my real work is currently unknown to me, I will be looking forward to the opportunity to experience Japanese work life. Where I am based, is famous for having the best gyoza in Japan. I will, of course, have to verify this.
For the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of September, my plans are to scale Mt. Fuji and stay over to watch the sunrise. The following weekend I will either be heading into Tokyo to stay over there during the weekend or making a short return to Sendai to catch the Sendai Jazz fesitval. I still have to decide on which I would like to do.
I reutrn from my internship on the 15th of September, a Friday and will make my presentation to the lab on the Saturday, the day after. I have other annoucements to make for after the 15th and will have them posted when I have settled on the details.
For this week, tonight I will be catching a movie from the son of Miyazaki Hayao (the maker of movies such as Totoro, Laputa, etc etc), a dinner with friends is schedules for tomorrow and Friday and a beach BBQ is scheduled for Sunday as Mike's farewell before he returns to MIT.
Keeping busy... in a good way.
Most presenters typically go for more than hour, though some people that don't have a lot to say might be faster. My goal will be to cover my matieral with people being able to understand the important parts of my reserach and what I have done. I'm already 30 slides into my presentation and I only worked for 3 hours today. I still will have to make more slides. Fortunately, most of these slides have lots of pictures.
As for my internship, I be working in a branch doing R&D on conductive polymers of Sumitomo Corporation. These polymers have applications in flexible displays. Though my real work is currently unknown to me, I will be looking forward to the opportunity to experience Japanese work life. Where I am based, is famous for having the best gyoza in Japan. I will, of course, have to verify this.
For the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of September, my plans are to scale Mt. Fuji and stay over to watch the sunrise. The following weekend I will either be heading into Tokyo to stay over there during the weekend or making a short return to Sendai to catch the Sendai Jazz fesitval. I still have to decide on which I would like to do.
I reutrn from my internship on the 15th of September, a Friday and will make my presentation to the lab on the Saturday, the day after. I have other annoucements to make for after the 15th and will have them posted when I have settled on the details.
For this week, tonight I will be catching a movie from the son of Miyazaki Hayao (the maker of movies such as Totoro, Laputa, etc etc), a dinner with friends is schedules for tomorrow and Friday and a beach BBQ is scheduled for Sunday as Mike's farewell before he returns to MIT.
Keeping busy... in a good way.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Arrgh, Sunburn! Itchy back!
In general, my body is typically very resistant to getting sun burn, in the sense that I don't have to wear sun block most of the time. Apparently on Sunday, it wasn't so and I got a little roasted on my back. Nothing really bad, just slight tingling and mild soreness, other then that it's all good.
Come today, I'd head out for a BBQ by the river with friends... which was great by the way. Went to a place called Akiu (which is well known for good hot springs) and BBQ'd by the river. After wrapping up, we hit the hot spring and I wouldn't be able to sit all the way in the hot spring because the hot acidic water would sting my back. It was allright though, I did my best to enjoy the hot spring and then left.
Came home by about 8 pm and now by about 10 pm, my back is insanely itchy... and if I scratch it, it stings! What horrible torture... it's either itching or the stinging. Ugh
Come today, I'd head out for a BBQ by the river with friends... which was great by the way. Went to a place called Akiu (which is well known for good hot springs) and BBQ'd by the river. After wrapping up, we hit the hot spring and I wouldn't be able to sit all the way in the hot spring because the hot acidic water would sting my back. It was allright though, I did my best to enjoy the hot spring and then left.
Came home by about 8 pm and now by about 10 pm, my back is insanely itchy... and if I scratch it, it stings! What horrible torture... it's either itching or the stinging. Ugh
One Awesome Weekend
I get an e-mail a few days ago from a friend telling me that there would be one big beach party happening in Yotsukura, Iwaki. Not knowing where that was at the time, and since said friend lived in Sendai, I assumed that it would be somewhere close by. I would be dead wrong when I told my roomies about it when I asked if they'd be interested in going. Kuni, specifically told me to check a map... I did. Turns out it is *150* km away from Sendai... and that it'd be happening on a Saturday, the day I have lab meetings that typically runs until 4 pm.
Sendai-->Yotsukura = 150 km
I nerfed the idea on the Friday evening thinking that it would be one hell of a ride out. The next day, during the lab meeting I decided "what the hell! A 3000 people beach party with 30 DJ's etc etc doesn't happen all the time now does it?" So as soon as the meeting was over, I scrambled home to drop off all my stuff and called Kuni to borrow his motorbike touring map book. After I told him what for, he proptly replied "are you freaking crazy?" and I told him "shouldn't you know that by now??" And then I was off... I didn't bring anything, except for my wallet, iPod and cell phone.
On the way to the beach party there were 2 things that I knew, the name of the beach and that I wouldn't have a place to sleep that night. Why? Because my scooter has a range of 70 km on a full tank of gas but all the gas stations would be closed past midnight-- I'd be sleeping on the beach tonight and that's exactly what I did.
I scootered without end for 4 hours to make it into Iwaki by night fall. The sun had set while I was scootering and the bugs came out-- I turned into a human bug screen running through the night at 60 km/h. I had to wipe my face a few times after a few good splats!
I arrived at the beach to the smell of BBQ smoke, flashing lights, lots of music and everyone in beach gear. I'm just going to say that I'm really sorry for you guys that I didn't bring a camera with me (come visit me next year in August instead)!!
There was a make shift half-pipe for skate boarders, a motor-bike stunt show, a row of tents with food and DJ's in everyone of them playing all sorts of mixed music. 1 big stage for live DJ performances, a Reggae booth for people to chill out and a couple of fire-dancers hanging out for the evening. There was even 2 beach volley-ball nets setup and a bikini contest, which I missed (unfortunately oh well, life goes on).
So what did I do? I milled about, bought food and drinks and took in the sights for a good hour. I came alone and the friend I was supposed to meet never returned calls or my e-mail (from the cell)-- so it would be up to me to have some fun.
The volleyball nets were open late at night to anyone; they finished a tournament so I hopped into a game over there and made friends with a bunch of JETs (English teachers) from around the world based in Ibaraki and with some of the Japanese people hanging out. Was great fun.
By late evening I crashed on the beach looked into the sky and caught a few shooting stars... until clouds... clouds of smoke from fireworks, that is, cover the sky at about midnight. I hung out with the international crew, went out for a midnight jog just for the hell of it chatting with a new friend and then crashed on the beach by 3 am. I would wake up (not that I really slept) by 4:30 ish to the rising sun... which unfortunately was obscured by the clouds and left at 5 am for Sendai by scooter because I had an appointment at 10 am!
I got a call on the beach, from a friend of mine. I knew that I'd be going to a beach BBQ the next day and was just waiting for the details on when... I got that call to learn that they'd be leaving in the morning to the beach to BBQ in the afternoon. WHAT? All my BBQs usually happened at night... but these people would be leaving at 10 am. Man, oh man. I'd be on a tight schedule.
I agreed that I'd make the BBQ. I got home by 8:30, showered and slept for 30 minutes before I was up again to change into a new pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then I'd leave home running to the subway station with sand still in my shoes from the last beach.
I arrived to meet up with Mari and a guy named Motomu (works at the local TV station) and his director boss (Kame). Who knows, I might be on Sendai TV one day, oh wait, I already was for an inpromptu interview nearly 5 months ago. There were 7 that were supposed to make it out, 3 bailed because they wre hung over from a party the last night. Turns out that I was the man of the day because I came scootering out of Iwaki on 2.5 hours of sleep to make it to their BBQ. A little hard effort really does pay off!
I didn't even bring a pair of swim trunks to the beach... didn't even think that far because I wasn't entirely there in my head at the time. But I went swimming anyways, setup the fire and gilled some meat on the beach. It was good. I got home at about 8 pm, fell asleep by 9 and woke up by 8 am. Slept 11 hours straight, but it was the best kind of sleep. The kind of sleep you get when you went all out, drift off exhaused and wake up the next morning satisfied with everything you did. I want more of those kind of days!
Sendai-->Yotsukura = 150 kmI nerfed the idea on the Friday evening thinking that it would be one hell of a ride out. The next day, during the lab meeting I decided "what the hell! A 3000 people beach party with 30 DJ's etc etc doesn't happen all the time now does it?" So as soon as the meeting was over, I scrambled home to drop off all my stuff and called Kuni to borrow his motorbike touring map book. After I told him what for, he proptly replied "are you freaking crazy?" and I told him "shouldn't you know that by now??" And then I was off... I didn't bring anything, except for my wallet, iPod and cell phone.
On the way to the beach party there were 2 things that I knew, the name of the beach and that I wouldn't have a place to sleep that night. Why? Because my scooter has a range of 70 km on a full tank of gas but all the gas stations would be closed past midnight-- I'd be sleeping on the beach tonight and that's exactly what I did.
I scootered without end for 4 hours to make it into Iwaki by night fall. The sun had set while I was scootering and the bugs came out-- I turned into a human bug screen running through the night at 60 km/h. I had to wipe my face a few times after a few good splats!
I arrived at the beach to the smell of BBQ smoke, flashing lights, lots of music and everyone in beach gear. I'm just going to say that I'm really sorry for you guys that I didn't bring a camera with me (come visit me next year in August instead)!!
There was a make shift half-pipe for skate boarders, a motor-bike stunt show, a row of tents with food and DJ's in everyone of them playing all sorts of mixed music. 1 big stage for live DJ performances, a Reggae booth for people to chill out and a couple of fire-dancers hanging out for the evening. There was even 2 beach volley-ball nets setup and a bikini contest, which I missed (unfortunately oh well, life goes on).
So what did I do? I milled about, bought food and drinks and took in the sights for a good hour. I came alone and the friend I was supposed to meet never returned calls or my e-mail (from the cell)-- so it would be up to me to have some fun.
The volleyball nets were open late at night to anyone; they finished a tournament so I hopped into a game over there and made friends with a bunch of JETs (English teachers) from around the world based in Ibaraki and with some of the Japanese people hanging out. Was great fun.
By late evening I crashed on the beach looked into the sky and caught a few shooting stars... until clouds... clouds of smoke from fireworks, that is, cover the sky at about midnight. I hung out with the international crew, went out for a midnight jog just for the hell of it chatting with a new friend and then crashed on the beach by 3 am. I would wake up (not that I really slept) by 4:30 ish to the rising sun... which unfortunately was obscured by the clouds and left at 5 am for Sendai by scooter because I had an appointment at 10 am!
I got a call on the beach, from a friend of mine. I knew that I'd be going to a beach BBQ the next day and was just waiting for the details on when... I got that call to learn that they'd be leaving in the morning to the beach to BBQ in the afternoon. WHAT? All my BBQs usually happened at night... but these people would be leaving at 10 am. Man, oh man. I'd be on a tight schedule.
I agreed that I'd make the BBQ. I got home by 8:30, showered and slept for 30 minutes before I was up again to change into a new pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then I'd leave home running to the subway station with sand still in my shoes from the last beach.
I arrived to meet up with Mari and a guy named Motomu (works at the local TV station) and his director boss (Kame). Who knows, I might be on Sendai TV one day, oh wait, I already was for an inpromptu interview nearly 5 months ago. There were 7 that were supposed to make it out, 3 bailed because they wre hung over from a party the last night. Turns out that I was the man of the day because I came scootering out of Iwaki on 2.5 hours of sleep to make it to their BBQ. A little hard effort really does pay off!
I didn't even bring a pair of swim trunks to the beach... didn't even think that far because I wasn't entirely there in my head at the time. But I went swimming anyways, setup the fire and gilled some meat on the beach. It was good. I got home at about 8 pm, fell asleep by 9 and woke up by 8 am. Slept 11 hours straight, but it was the best kind of sleep. The kind of sleep you get when you went all out, drift off exhaused and wake up the next morning satisfied with everything you did. I want more of those kind of days!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
In Aizu for the Weekend
At first I didn't think that I'd be going anywhere for the weekend but it turns out that I was wrong.
Tuan (my Swedish friend) left Sendai on Wedensday back to Aizu to his host family in Japan. I had never been to Aizu before so I got a standing invitation to go visit him and his host family... whom are in the Fukushima region about, 160 km away from Sendai. Since I didn't have a lab meeting this weekend since it is the Obon long weekend, I decided that I would head out and visit him. Turns out the night before I left Sendai, the weather reports told me of an 80% chance of *thunder showers.* So, I thought the plan was moot and stayed up late on the Friday surfing the net.
I woke up late today at 10 am to find it just cloudy in Sendai and checked the weather report to find that today there would be no thundershowers and only a 20% chance of rain. I fired out an e-mail out to Tuan and by noon, I was out of the house and on my way to Aizu. Crazy, the day before Tuan told me that it probably it was fate that we wouldn't meet again before he left Japan. Turns out that fate was on my side.
After a 5 hour ride on my scooter (after taking a few pit stops to admire the scenery and check out random places) I would finally arrive at Aizu to be greeted by Tuan at the train station... whom didn't recognize me at first because I had my sunglasses on while I was standing right in front of him. Heh, what a shock he had when I took off my sunglasses.
We headed out around town to visit a local cafe to get a drink and headed out to Tsurukajyo, an old castle in Aizu to check out on the way home. Turns out that there was a Japanese drum performance happening that evening that we caught and had a great time.
We dropped back to Tuan's homestay family and had okonomiyaki (best description is "Japanese pizza/pancake" made by his homestay father who is from Osaka (the origin of this food), yum!
After having a living conversation about all sorts of things in Japanese and a shower... here I am typing away here. We probably aren't going to sleep early tonight and then we are going to spend the afternoon hanging out in town before I make my way back to Sendai late in the evening.
I am going to say that I am really happy to have made the trip on scooter instead of taking the bus (round trip bus is $50, scooter is $15), I pay for it in an extra 2 hours in round trip time --> it's a good deal for me because I can stop anywhere I like~ And I did manage to pick up some really nice peaches on the way in to Aizu which we will eat tomorrow.
So, that is that. More news and pictures when I get back to Sendai.
Tuan (my Swedish friend) left Sendai on Wedensday back to Aizu to his host family in Japan. I had never been to Aizu before so I got a standing invitation to go visit him and his host family... whom are in the Fukushima region about, 160 km away from Sendai. Since I didn't have a lab meeting this weekend since it is the Obon long weekend, I decided that I would head out and visit him. Turns out the night before I left Sendai, the weather reports told me of an 80% chance of *thunder showers.* So, I thought the plan was moot and stayed up late on the Friday surfing the net.
I woke up late today at 10 am to find it just cloudy in Sendai and checked the weather report to find that today there would be no thundershowers and only a 20% chance of rain. I fired out an e-mail out to Tuan and by noon, I was out of the house and on my way to Aizu. Crazy, the day before Tuan told me that it probably it was fate that we wouldn't meet again before he left Japan. Turns out that fate was on my side.
After a 5 hour ride on my scooter (after taking a few pit stops to admire the scenery and check out random places) I would finally arrive at Aizu to be greeted by Tuan at the train station... whom didn't recognize me at first because I had my sunglasses on while I was standing right in front of him. Heh, what a shock he had when I took off my sunglasses.
We headed out around town to visit a local cafe to get a drink and headed out to Tsurukajyo, an old castle in Aizu to check out on the way home. Turns out that there was a Japanese drum performance happening that evening that we caught and had a great time.
We dropped back to Tuan's homestay family and had okonomiyaki (best description is "Japanese pizza/pancake" made by his homestay father who is from Osaka (the origin of this food), yum!
After having a living conversation about all sorts of things in Japanese and a shower... here I am typing away here. We probably aren't going to sleep early tonight and then we are going to spend the afternoon hanging out in town before I make my way back to Sendai late in the evening.
I am going to say that I am really happy to have made the trip on scooter instead of taking the bus (round trip bus is $50, scooter is $15), I pay for it in an extra 2 hours in round trip time --> it's a good deal for me because I can stop anywhere I like~ And I did manage to pick up some really nice peaches on the way in to Aizu which we will eat tomorrow.
So, that is that. More news and pictures when I get back to Sendai.
Friday, August 04, 2006
If the news only had a brain
How many of you are aware of why Isreal and the Arabs always fighting? I'll also admit that my knowledge of the origins of the conflict is rather sparce, all that I know is that ever since that I was young, that Isreal and the Arabs have always been in conflict.
I was poking aroung reddit just a while ago and came across this essay written by King Abdullah, the founder of Jordan in 1947. I am sure that many of you out there are following the current flaring of conflict (albeit war) occuring between Isreal and Lebanon as of this moment. War, like car accidents make for great news--something interesting to look at but you'd rather not be connected with.
This is one of the most interesting essays regarding the Isreali-Arab conflict especially since it dates about 60 years back and from the Arabic point of view which is so very unoften heard from. I was quite fascinated to fine such fine English, articulation and composition of thought which is something quite rare to find in common writing today. If you're reading this now, I suggest that you jump there and read it now. The essay is entitled "As the Arabs see the Jews."
I have noticed that it is always that Isreal is always portrayed as non-agressors when it comes to conflict. You read of stories of "Arab attacks" and then Isreal acting in "self-defence." Can you still call it self defence when 2 of your own people are taken captive and then you start making strategic attacks, then get attacked back and then go in for a full scale ground assult outside of your borders? If that was the case, Japan and North Korea should be at full scale war right now over a handful of captured citizens which were forced to train North Korean intelligence officers.
There is an incredible amount of white noise in the news, that it is almost not worth reading anymore. I have read so much, but so much is about nothing-- the news is incredibly thoughtless. If I were to make a bold prediction about the news, I will predict that the news as we know it will die in the next 20~30 years. Watch news parodies like The Daily Show and you will realize how ridiculus the news is, so ridiculus that it's comedy (John Stewart's impression of what's being said on the news about the Isreali-Lebanon conflict here). How can people take the news seriously?
I since moving out, I've never bothered to buy a TV. I did get one from friend when they left Japan and plugged it in for a little while but couldn't stand to watch anything for a period of time. There are better things to do instead of watching TV or reading "bad news."
I was poking aroung reddit just a while ago and came across this essay written by King Abdullah, the founder of Jordan in 1947. I am sure that many of you out there are following the current flaring of conflict (albeit war) occuring between Isreal and Lebanon as of this moment. War, like car accidents make for great news--something interesting to look at but you'd rather not be connected with.
This is one of the most interesting essays regarding the Isreali-Arab conflict especially since it dates about 60 years back and from the Arabic point of view which is so very unoften heard from. I was quite fascinated to fine such fine English, articulation and composition of thought which is something quite rare to find in common writing today. If you're reading this now, I suggest that you jump there and read it now. The essay is entitled "As the Arabs see the Jews."
I have noticed that it is always that Isreal is always portrayed as non-agressors when it comes to conflict. You read of stories of "Arab attacks" and then Isreal acting in "self-defence." Can you still call it self defence when 2 of your own people are taken captive and then you start making strategic attacks, then get attacked back and then go in for a full scale ground assult outside of your borders? If that was the case, Japan and North Korea should be at full scale war right now over a handful of captured citizens which were forced to train North Korean intelligence officers.
There is an incredible amount of white noise in the news, that it is almost not worth reading anymore. I have read so much, but so much is about nothing-- the news is incredibly thoughtless. If I were to make a bold prediction about the news, I will predict that the news as we know it will die in the next 20~30 years. Watch news parodies like The Daily Show and you will realize how ridiculus the news is, so ridiculus that it's comedy (John Stewart's impression of what's being said on the news about the Isreali-Lebanon conflict here). How can people take the news seriously?
I since moving out, I've never bothered to buy a TV. I did get one from friend when they left Japan and plugged it in for a little while but couldn't stand to watch anything for a period of time. There are better things to do instead of watching TV or reading "bad news."
End of Exams
Exams ended on Wendensday and it's great to be free... sort'a. My last exam was on Wedensday for my controls course. We had 90 minutes to write the exam but I was done in 30 and was the first one out! Boo yeah. The exam was open book too and I heard through out the exam the flipping of papers while people frantically looked for notes on how to solve a certain problem. Unfortunately, it was sort of a cute problem that needed some thinking to solve.
I have to prepare for my in-house lab presentation coming up in September. But the problem is that I will be away on internship for 3 weeks and my presentation occurs the day after I get back. Meaning that I need to get some results together and have the thing ready before I head off. There's always something to do... but I guess it's better that way.
I have to prepare for my in-house lab presentation coming up in September. But the problem is that I will be away on internship for 3 weeks and my presentation occurs the day after I get back. Meaning that I need to get some results together and have the thing ready before I head off. There's always something to do... but I guess it's better that way.
Monday, July 31, 2006
You aren't what you study
For no particular reason, I decided that I would poke around to learn more about a language called Python. What is great about this language is that it is an interpretive language with variables that can be dynamically be typed. What is means in normal English is that Python is a language that doesn't need to be compiled into a .exe program before running, but actually be run as a text-file that can do a very wide variety of tasks. In addition, the language intepreter automatically knows how to deal with what data you put into the program instead of you telling what kind of data you are putting into every variable.
Why is this good? This isn't just good, but it's excellent because you don't need to keep lists of your own modules and compile them into a .exe program to run. If you need to make changes, you don't have to recompile the program-- you just make your changes and run it immediately. It's quick and good... and getting things done quick and good is always a good thing!
My first introduction into an interpretive computer language was Matlab, a math simulation software package which I've used for image and acoustic processing. I would further my work with this software by implementing robotic tracking algorithms (using probability), simulating differential equations and even writing my own poker game as extra projects (or class inspired projects). But this is a slight tangent...
What I would find today while surfing on net is a company that developed a packaged software to make installing python and developing code easier by a bunch of people running a very successful looking company out of BC. More interestingly the CEO is an Engineer, the CTO has BA in Physics and a PH.D in cognitive science, the business and project management guy has a physics degree and there are a bunch more with degrees in Computer science and physics.
What first struck me first is how did a a large chunk of senior management people out of physics make it into a computer software company? Then it struck me that people don't necessarly have to be exactly the things they were trained to do.
For even me as a person that studied Engineering Physics with a specialization in electrical engineering in my undergraduate life, I have so far looked at various problems that are not directly in my field of training. I have worked in a robotics lab building circuitry for a motor control system (unfortuately it didn't work 100%), I've done image processing work (including tracking targets in 3D), I've programmed a robot tracking technique out of description out of some research paper and a few other things that I haven't been directly trained to do.
As I realize now, that my background (as much as I didn't understand it at the time) is providing me with the tools to leap into other problems that are not directly related to my specialty, as I have noticed from these people. This is important, because you can't be trained for problems in the real world-- there are always going to be ones popping that you've never seen before all the time. But what you can be, is trained with experience in dealing with problems you've never seen to deal with more of the same. That is exceptionally empowering because you're never going to be working on the same thing forever; and when something new pops up, you'll have enough background to get started and work in many different fields.
My hat is off to these guys.
Why is this good? This isn't just good, but it's excellent because you don't need to keep lists of your own modules and compile them into a .exe program to run. If you need to make changes, you don't have to recompile the program-- you just make your changes and run it immediately. It's quick and good... and getting things done quick and good is always a good thing!
My first introduction into an interpretive computer language was Matlab, a math simulation software package which I've used for image and acoustic processing. I would further my work with this software by implementing robotic tracking algorithms (using probability), simulating differential equations and even writing my own poker game as extra projects (or class inspired projects). But this is a slight tangent...
What I would find today while surfing on net is a company that developed a packaged software to make installing python and developing code easier by a bunch of people running a very successful looking company out of BC. More interestingly the CEO is an Engineer, the CTO has BA in Physics and a PH.D in cognitive science, the business and project management guy has a physics degree and there are a bunch more with degrees in Computer science and physics.
What first struck me first is how did a a large chunk of senior management people out of physics make it into a computer software company? Then it struck me that people don't necessarly have to be exactly the things they were trained to do.
For even me as a person that studied Engineering Physics with a specialization in electrical engineering in my undergraduate life, I have so far looked at various problems that are not directly in my field of training. I have worked in a robotics lab building circuitry for a motor control system (unfortuately it didn't work 100%), I've done image processing work (including tracking targets in 3D), I've programmed a robot tracking technique out of description out of some research paper and a few other things that I haven't been directly trained to do.
As I realize now, that my background (as much as I didn't understand it at the time) is providing me with the tools to leap into other problems that are not directly related to my specialty, as I have noticed from these people. This is important, because you can't be trained for problems in the real world-- there are always going to be ones popping that you've never seen before all the time. But what you can be, is trained with experience in dealing with problems you've never seen to deal with more of the same. That is exceptionally empowering because you're never going to be working on the same thing forever; and when something new pops up, you'll have enough background to get started and work in many different fields.
My hat is off to these guys.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Attracting, Creating and Keeping Educated People is Essential
More Money isn't the Solution
There has oft been talk about ways of improving the economy, develping new technology and improving life in general. Governments often talk about spending more money at problems, more money to health care, more money to infrastructure, more money to all sorts of programs. What if, one day you stripped society of money-- simply, what if money stoped existing, what would you have left? What is left is the people that do the work to make things work. Money isn't the resource that its key, it's people.
It's Human Resources
Simply having money does not generate wealth. Financial managers realize this the best. When these people look at investing the hard earned money of other people what they are looking for are the right group of people with the right kind of ideas to make them reality. We are talking about people, it has always been about people and it will always be about people. There is a specific reason why the US in the past has been so innovative in terms of technology-- it was for the "American Dream" and the open immigration policies that attracted people to the States. The important thing was that America at the time attracted all sorts of people because it had the image of a desirable place to live, most importantly, it also attracted highly determined and skilled people. If it were not for the right kind of people, the States would not be where it is today.
I am fortunate to say that I have had the opportunity to study in a different educational institution in a totally different country. I studied at the University of British Columbia which is currently ranked 37 th in the world and I am currently at Tohoku University which is ranked 73rd in the world (source). There is a significant difference in world rankings and after coming to this University I realize why. The university and student culture is totally different from where I was before. The students in terms of background knowledge are significantly weaker compared to those at UBC. In fact it is of my humble opinion that the university educational system is signficantly inferior compared to the North American model in terms of producing knowledgable students. When it comes to producting good and interesting work, the culture of people around you is essential.
For anyone that has worked on group projects or part of a team, it is evident that the quality of the members have a signficant impact of the quality of the finished product. This is something that everyone since junior high school knows-- either you partner with friends or you partner with people that you know have a history of doing good work (the collary is true for deciding which people you will not partner with). When it comes to University research, starting a company or working with people on a good will project--the deciding factor is the people that get things to work.
The Compounding (or Positivie Feedback) Effect
For people that studied control theory or differential equations or have a bank account, you will understand this. In terms of money, if you have money in your bank account, you earn interest on that money. You take that money and the interest to earn more interest. What happens is that the growth of your money is exponential and it explodes over a period of time. This is the what is known as compounding. This is true in theory, but we get shafted on the interest rates. People on the other hand, have far better compounding rates and let me explain why (and no, I'm not talking about reproductive compounding).
When I talk about skilled people, I am going narrow the discussion of highly applied and educated people. Let me pose this discussion in the frame of universities. There is a reason why good universities are the breeding grounds of successful companies (which are the result of skilled people). Good universities are the hub where skilled individuals converge. The better the university the more skilled the people there.
Places with skilled people attract skilled people. There are 2 reasons why this occurs. Firstly, skilled people want to learn from skilled people (ie. their professors). When you choose a university institution you usually want to go for the best possbile because the better the people are the more you will learn from them. People with less knowledge and skill will obviously have less to teach. Secondly, what most students may or may not realize is that going to good universities will allow them to interact with other skilled people (ie. their peers), possibly learning and working with them. Putting it this way, suppose that you had a group of 10,000 very skilled people, every person would be able to interact with 9,999 other very talented people, not that they would interact with them all. Being exposed to a large pool of talented people only further increases the the amount of interesting things they may learn. If people are resources, then this is important.
As a reminder of warning, simply just being at a good insitution does not mean that you will automatically become a highly skilled individual. There is an element of personal drive which I have not mentioned but assumed that everyone carries.
The end result is that good universties attract skilled people, which in turn trains these people to become even more skilled. This is the compounding effect. But what of other institutions that aren't near the top? Unfortunately, for these institutions, the few skilled people they create often move on into better institutions. These places face the opposite compounding effects or negative feedback.
Success is Achieving Positive Feedback
When you want to build anything successful, whether it be a company, university or a country, you need the right people and there are only 2 ways that you can get them-- either creating them or attracting them. The second problem that needs to be addressed is keeping them. When these two conditions are achieved then you can achieve whatever in your grasp and keep going from there. This is the creation of a successful system-- the founders of Google understood this. If there is one shortage that Silicon Valley faces right now, it's skilled people that are outside of Google, because they've been getting their hands on the most skilled people-- it's the people that makes them successful; search and web advertising was done before, its the way they do it that makes them successful! The question that needs to be addressed is the creation of an organization that attracts skilled people-- places like MIT, Harvard, UofT, Google and more.
Creating a place of skilled people first starts with training skilled people. Where this begins is the education system, more in particular the secondary education system and to an extent the post secondary system. What is needed is an environment where people can become skilled. Schools don't teach people how to be skilled nor do they make skilled people (or even people that want to be skilled). People organically become what they are, the things that they currently do are learned outside of school. Most people that got good at the things they did so through this route, whether it be programming, music, painting, math, design, whatever. The real winners are the ones that knew what they liked, what they wanted to be good at and went off and did it on their own.
If this is the case, then what is the point of the education system? Most of the information taught is largely useless, atleast in the context of the secondary education system. I did write a small talk about the value of knowledge and it's applicability. If the education system is to have any purpose other than being an elaborate day care of children, it is going to have to train people to be useful. For these reasons alone, a good education system is essential to creating a successful society.
Good Teachers are Essential
How does one create a good education system? Again, it boils down to the people-- you need good teachers (and perhaps, students too... but this is often beyond the scope of teachers). If there is one thing that is worth its weight in gold, its good teachers. In the lifespan of a teacher, a teacher will teach over 1,000 students. That's 1,000 people that this teacher will impress upon. What if these 1,000 people were taught exceptionally well? What if 300 of them went off to become successful people as a result of their teachers? That's what the effect of a good education system could have on a society, assuming these successful people stick around.
How do we get good teachers? Again, this boils down to the problem of attracting the right people; and to attract the right people, you are going to need people and the environment to attract them.
There has oft been talk about ways of improving the economy, develping new technology and improving life in general. Governments often talk about spending more money at problems, more money to health care, more money to infrastructure, more money to all sorts of programs. What if, one day you stripped society of money-- simply, what if money stoped existing, what would you have left? What is left is the people that do the work to make things work. Money isn't the resource that its key, it's people.
It's Human Resources
Simply having money does not generate wealth. Financial managers realize this the best. When these people look at investing the hard earned money of other people what they are looking for are the right group of people with the right kind of ideas to make them reality. We are talking about people, it has always been about people and it will always be about people. There is a specific reason why the US in the past has been so innovative in terms of technology-- it was for the "American Dream" and the open immigration policies that attracted people to the States. The important thing was that America at the time attracted all sorts of people because it had the image of a desirable place to live, most importantly, it also attracted highly determined and skilled people. If it were not for the right kind of people, the States would not be where it is today.
I am fortunate to say that I have had the opportunity to study in a different educational institution in a totally different country. I studied at the University of British Columbia which is currently ranked 37 th in the world and I am currently at Tohoku University which is ranked 73rd in the world (source). There is a significant difference in world rankings and after coming to this University I realize why. The university and student culture is totally different from where I was before. The students in terms of background knowledge are significantly weaker compared to those at UBC. In fact it is of my humble opinion that the university educational system is signficantly inferior compared to the North American model in terms of producing knowledgable students. When it comes to producting good and interesting work, the culture of people around you is essential.
For anyone that has worked on group projects or part of a team, it is evident that the quality of the members have a signficant impact of the quality of the finished product. This is something that everyone since junior high school knows-- either you partner with friends or you partner with people that you know have a history of doing good work (the collary is true for deciding which people you will not partner with). When it comes to University research, starting a company or working with people on a good will project--the deciding factor is the people that get things to work.
The Compounding (or Positivie Feedback) Effect
For people that studied control theory or differential equations or have a bank account, you will understand this. In terms of money, if you have money in your bank account, you earn interest on that money. You take that money and the interest to earn more interest. What happens is that the growth of your money is exponential and it explodes over a period of time. This is the what is known as compounding. This is true in theory, but we get shafted on the interest rates. People on the other hand, have far better compounding rates and let me explain why (and no, I'm not talking about reproductive compounding).
When I talk about skilled people, I am going narrow the discussion of highly applied and educated people. Let me pose this discussion in the frame of universities. There is a reason why good universities are the breeding grounds of successful companies (which are the result of skilled people). Good universities are the hub where skilled individuals converge. The better the university the more skilled the people there.
Places with skilled people attract skilled people. There are 2 reasons why this occurs. Firstly, skilled people want to learn from skilled people (ie. their professors). When you choose a university institution you usually want to go for the best possbile because the better the people are the more you will learn from them. People with less knowledge and skill will obviously have less to teach. Secondly, what most students may or may not realize is that going to good universities will allow them to interact with other skilled people (ie. their peers), possibly learning and working with them. Putting it this way, suppose that you had a group of 10,000 very skilled people, every person would be able to interact with 9,999 other very talented people, not that they would interact with them all. Being exposed to a large pool of talented people only further increases the the amount of interesting things they may learn. If people are resources, then this is important.
As a reminder of warning, simply just being at a good insitution does not mean that you will automatically become a highly skilled individual. There is an element of personal drive which I have not mentioned but assumed that everyone carries.
The end result is that good universties attract skilled people, which in turn trains these people to become even more skilled. This is the compounding effect. But what of other institutions that aren't near the top? Unfortunately, for these institutions, the few skilled people they create often move on into better institutions. These places face the opposite compounding effects or negative feedback.
Success is Achieving Positive Feedback
When you want to build anything successful, whether it be a company, university or a country, you need the right people and there are only 2 ways that you can get them-- either creating them or attracting them. The second problem that needs to be addressed is keeping them. When these two conditions are achieved then you can achieve whatever in your grasp and keep going from there. This is the creation of a successful system-- the founders of Google understood this. If there is one shortage that Silicon Valley faces right now, it's skilled people that are outside of Google, because they've been getting their hands on the most skilled people-- it's the people that makes them successful; search and web advertising was done before, its the way they do it that makes them successful! The question that needs to be addressed is the creation of an organization that attracts skilled people-- places like MIT, Harvard, UofT, Google and more.
Creating a place of skilled people first starts with training skilled people. Where this begins is the education system, more in particular the secondary education system and to an extent the post secondary system. What is needed is an environment where people can become skilled. Schools don't teach people how to be skilled nor do they make skilled people (or even people that want to be skilled). People organically become what they are, the things that they currently do are learned outside of school. Most people that got good at the things they did so through this route, whether it be programming, music, painting, math, design, whatever. The real winners are the ones that knew what they liked, what they wanted to be good at and went off and did it on their own.
If this is the case, then what is the point of the education system? Most of the information taught is largely useless, atleast in the context of the secondary education system. I did write a small talk about the value of knowledge and it's applicability. If the education system is to have any purpose other than being an elaborate day care of children, it is going to have to train people to be useful. For these reasons alone, a good education system is essential to creating a successful society.
Good Teachers are Essential
How does one create a good education system? Again, it boils down to the people-- you need good teachers (and perhaps, students too... but this is often beyond the scope of teachers). If there is one thing that is worth its weight in gold, its good teachers. In the lifespan of a teacher, a teacher will teach over 1,000 students. That's 1,000 people that this teacher will impress upon. What if these 1,000 people were taught exceptionally well? What if 300 of them went off to become successful people as a result of their teachers? That's what the effect of a good education system could have on a society, assuming these successful people stick around.
How do we get good teachers? Again, this boils down to the problem of attracting the right people; and to attract the right people, you are going to need people and the environment to attract them.
Past the first hurdle
Today I completed my fluid mechanics exam. I got off easy and wrote the exam in English. I feel like a bit of a cop out but I still don't have the vocabulary of getting through on the fly on an exam with technical terms (not to mention kanji), I asked for an English translation of the exam and was fortunate to have my professors comply.
I have lept over my major hurdle for this week. My next major hurdle will be my controls exam next week on Wedensday and after that, I will be done with all my classes.
After coming home at 3:30 am, I would sleep restlessly till 7:30 am. Walked with Cindy to my lab (up the mountain with my scooter) to give her a tour of the place before seeing her off at the bus stop 20 minutes before my exam. By the time my exam was over, I grabbed lunch and came home to catch up on sleep. I would sleep for 4 hours then run off to teach my final English class for the summer.
I loafed around the home till 9:00, cooked dinner and then proceeded to prune my music collection as my hard drive was running low on space. I nixed about 5 GB of music. In the past, I used to be an avid collector of whole albums for the sake of completeness, but from here on in, I'll be focusing on just the songs I like out of an album.
Time to get to work on my final assignments.
I have lept over my major hurdle for this week. My next major hurdle will be my controls exam next week on Wedensday and after that, I will be done with all my classes.
After coming home at 3:30 am, I would sleep restlessly till 7:30 am. Walked with Cindy to my lab (up the mountain with my scooter) to give her a tour of the place before seeing her off at the bus stop 20 minutes before my exam. By the time my exam was over, I grabbed lunch and came home to catch up on sleep. I would sleep for 4 hours then run off to teach my final English class for the summer.
I loafed around the home till 9:00, cooked dinner and then proceeded to prune my music collection as my hard drive was running low on space. I nixed about 5 GB of music. In the past, I used to be an avid collector of whole albums for the sake of completeness, but from here on in, I'll be focusing on just the songs I like out of an album.
Time to get to work on my final assignments.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Still at lab?
There were many times in school where I wondered what life would be like outside of school, where summer vacations didn't exist and days wouldn't end till 5 pm. To me in school these thoughts were inconcievable-- I couldn't believe that I could live in a world without summer vacations and long days.
Before coming to Japan, I heard about lab life at the particular lab I was going to. I got an e-mail back from an American guy telling me that it wasn't uncommon for people to come in at about 9 am and not leave till 10 pm. Before coming to Japan, I thought I would be in for some serious hell when I started lab life here. Back at my old job where I worked at some really boring satellite imaging company (my job was pretty much manual labour for fixing satellite pictures!), I dreaded going to work everyday. I couldn't wait until lunch time to take my 30 minute break and then for the clock to hit 5 pm to jet out of the office. Staying for a second more would have been unbearable.
It is now 3:30 am... I slept in till 11:00 am today after staying up late with my roomies, oh and Cindy is visiting too! I didn't have classes at all today, but I've been running around handing in paper work for my internship program, fixing up an article that will be submitted for publication in a magazine (in Japanese... after much editing), teaching for 3.5 hours how to use a silicon wafer cutting machine then coming back to start studying for my fluid mechanics test "tomorrow," where I started studying at about 10:00 pm today. I'm not really keen on how the material was taught, but I was just introduced into Electro and Magneto hydrodynamics which are very cool topics after doing some searching on the internet. But anyways...
I never thought I would be living the life I would be right now with these kinds of hours but the funny thing is that I've gotten used to it. The one thing that's really nice about doing a master's is that you work at your own pace. I have on several occasions came home to take a nap and found myself programming until the wee hours of the evening because I thought what I was doing was interesting. Because, that is what really counts.
I should go home sometime...
Before coming to Japan, I heard about lab life at the particular lab I was going to. I got an e-mail back from an American guy telling me that it wasn't uncommon for people to come in at about 9 am and not leave till 10 pm. Before coming to Japan, I thought I would be in for some serious hell when I started lab life here. Back at my old job where I worked at some really boring satellite imaging company (my job was pretty much manual labour for fixing satellite pictures!), I dreaded going to work everyday. I couldn't wait until lunch time to take my 30 minute break and then for the clock to hit 5 pm to jet out of the office. Staying for a second more would have been unbearable.
It is now 3:30 am... I slept in till 11:00 am today after staying up late with my roomies, oh and Cindy is visiting too! I didn't have classes at all today, but I've been running around handing in paper work for my internship program, fixing up an article that will be submitted for publication in a magazine (in Japanese... after much editing), teaching for 3.5 hours how to use a silicon wafer cutting machine then coming back to start studying for my fluid mechanics test "tomorrow," where I started studying at about 10:00 pm today. I'm not really keen on how the material was taught, but I was just introduced into Electro and Magneto hydrodynamics which are very cool topics after doing some searching on the internet. But anyways...
I never thought I would be living the life I would be right now with these kinds of hours but the funny thing is that I've gotten used to it. The one thing that's really nice about doing a master's is that you work at your own pace. I have on several occasions came home to take a nap and found myself programming until the wee hours of the evening because I thought what I was doing was interesting. Because, that is what really counts.
I should go home sometime...
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Modeling
These last few days have been kind of interesting, I've ditched my experiments for the time being and working on some assignments for my classes. More like final assignments that I've to turn in. Recently, over the last few months, I've been finding myself modeling a few differential equations here and there. Did you know that you can model 1D differential equations in Excel? It's kind of cute but that's what I did for my controls classes, which are all about differential equations. I kind of felt bad for my labmates that used things like Mathematica to solve these equations. I was done in about 5 minutes. I also did it once for my 4th year math 400 class.
I've gotten back into modelling for my numerical analysis course. The professor told us to go model something using differential equations and I decided to model the concentration of an electric field around a sharp point. If you ever applied a strong voltage to a needle, it will either emit a plasma or an electron beam (if it is in a vacuum).
Turns out that my project is to make an electron beam using these things called carbon nano tubes. Suffice to say, they have incredibly small diameters, on the order of several nanometers for the smallest tubes. As I have read a bunch of reserach papers in the field, I've heard all about this concentration of electric fields on carbon nanotubes and after a while it started to make sense and I decided to model it to see if my hunch was right.
For you people that studied physics out there, do you remember how to calculate the electric field inside a parallel set of plates (ie, the parallel capacitor)? Now imagine if you added a big stage in the middle of the plate. The electric field from the stage to the opposite would look like if you had the plates closer together, the electric fields from the region far away from the stage would look like it was from a set of plates with a wider gap.
Now imagine what happened if the stage got narrower and narrower and turned into a long line? What would happen is that the fields everywhere in the parallel plates will want to look a normal parallel plate capacitor leaving a strong electric field concentration at the tip of the long and slender object. You probably won't understand this just be reading this because it's the kind of thing where a drawing is necessary. Fortunately, I was up till 2 am running simulations.
The purturbed capactor potential
The above image is a model of a plate with a stage. The stage is in dark red and it's kept at a high voltage, the color changes represents a decreasing voltage as you move away from the high voltage region.
A figure of the the carbon nanotube potential is illustrated below.
The second image, is a figure of what happens if you attach a long slender object to the plate at the bottom, for instance a Carbon nanotube. Going straight up from the tip of this object, you will notice that the color gradient changes the fastest at the tip. Regions of strong gradients in voltage represents strong electric fields, this is the property that electron emitters take advantage of when emitting electron beams.
How did I model this? There is something called Poisson's equation that can do this. The problem is that you can't find a simple function to model these equations. What Poisson's equation talks about its how things change... or how something should be distributed through a space following simple laws. Unfortunately, math books do not do a good job of explaning these ideas and most people that do figure it out, are also bad at explaining it (which explains my professors when they were teaching me differential equations).
I will have to do a better job of explaining this since I am planning on doing a seminar on numerical methods for my lab group this weekend.
I've gotten back into modelling for my numerical analysis course. The professor told us to go model something using differential equations and I decided to model the concentration of an electric field around a sharp point. If you ever applied a strong voltage to a needle, it will either emit a plasma or an electron beam (if it is in a vacuum).
Turns out that my project is to make an electron beam using these things called carbon nano tubes. Suffice to say, they have incredibly small diameters, on the order of several nanometers for the smallest tubes. As I have read a bunch of reserach papers in the field, I've heard all about this concentration of electric fields on carbon nanotubes and after a while it started to make sense and I decided to model it to see if my hunch was right.
For you people that studied physics out there, do you remember how to calculate the electric field inside a parallel set of plates (ie, the parallel capacitor)? Now imagine if you added a big stage in the middle of the plate. The electric field from the stage to the opposite would look like if you had the plates closer together, the electric fields from the region far away from the stage would look like it was from a set of plates with a wider gap.
Now imagine what happened if the stage got narrower and narrower and turned into a long line? What would happen is that the fields everywhere in the parallel plates will want to look a normal parallel plate capacitor leaving a strong electric field concentration at the tip of the long and slender object. You probably won't understand this just be reading this because it's the kind of thing where a drawing is necessary. Fortunately, I was up till 2 am running simulations.
The purturbed capactor potential
The above image is a model of a plate with a stage. The stage is in dark red and it's kept at a high voltage, the color changes represents a decreasing voltage as you move away from the high voltage region.
A figure of the the carbon nanotube potential is illustrated below.
The second image, is a figure of what happens if you attach a long slender object to the plate at the bottom, for instance a Carbon nanotube. Going straight up from the tip of this object, you will notice that the color gradient changes the fastest at the tip. Regions of strong gradients in voltage represents strong electric fields, this is the property that electron emitters take advantage of when emitting electron beams.
How did I model this? There is something called Poisson's equation that can do this. The problem is that you can't find a simple function to model these equations. What Poisson's equation talks about its how things change... or how something should be distributed through a space following simple laws. Unfortunately, math books do not do a good job of explaning these ideas and most people that do figure it out, are also bad at explaining it (which explains my professors when they were teaching me differential equations).
I will have to do a better job of explaining this since I am planning on doing a seminar on numerical methods for my lab group this weekend.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Return from a Seminar Camp
I was invited out to a seminar camp with a pair of laboratories this weekend from Ishinomaki University, which is a ways out from Sendai. The 2 labs that went did work in Nano-Micro technology and another is in Micro-biology. The aim was to get an exchange of ideas going by having the students make presentations to each other.
One of the professors at the university was a graduate from our lab and wanted an English speaker to do a presentation in English at the seminar. As for me, the professor told me that could present anything I wanted. I decided to do a talk based on my language essay to make my talk something completly different.
The students I was presenting to were undergrads, mostly in their 4th year doing their graduaion projects. At first, I thought I made a mistake on my presentation topic because initially, I thought I would be presenting it to masters students that would participate in international conferences. But it turned out to be a good topic anyway.
What I have so far learned from my experiences in Japan is that for the most part, Japanese students can't present well at all. I sit through 4 presentations every weekend and attend more presentations by students in other labs during classes (ie. paper presentations). What bugs me the most about presentations from Japanese students is that they have a horrible tendency to either read from a script (or even straight out of a paper) or they memorize what they want to say. Either way, when they present, their brains are off and this is a bad thing... especially when it comes to audience interaction (ie. answering questions or checking to make sure they understand what they are talking about).
So anyways, I did make my presentation and the response was well recieved. I would go on to explaining them how learning a new language is also about learning how to think in that language. They were exceptionally intreagued at the question I posed at them on how they think in Japanese. The argument being that not every word they want to say is chosen in advance but selected in a flow as they speak.
Understanding this flow in a new language is imperative to learning a new language. It also requires that the speaker to think in that language, which something that does not happen when you memorize particular lines from a text book... which is exactly how students in Japan are taught English. I do feel somewhat fortunate that I am a product of the Canadian education system (in the sense that students are encouraged to think, more so than places, say in Japan).
It seems that as a resut of my presentations, the professors from each respective labs have decided that they are going to implement either an "English hour" or "English day" in their labs to encourage students to speak English using my technique. The students, at first were cold to the idea, but in the end they were pretty enthusiastic about it-- they would be dropping the old method of learning English behind them and looking forward to immersing themselves in the English language. I am very glad that they've been inspired... because everything starts with a little inspiration. I can only hope that their linguistic ambitions becomes fruitfuly prosperous.
One of the professors at the university was a graduate from our lab and wanted an English speaker to do a presentation in English at the seminar. As for me, the professor told me that could present anything I wanted. I decided to do a talk based on my language essay to make my talk something completly different.
The students I was presenting to were undergrads, mostly in their 4th year doing their graduaion projects. At first, I thought I made a mistake on my presentation topic because initially, I thought I would be presenting it to masters students that would participate in international conferences. But it turned out to be a good topic anyway.
What I have so far learned from my experiences in Japan is that for the most part, Japanese students can't present well at all. I sit through 4 presentations every weekend and attend more presentations by students in other labs during classes (ie. paper presentations). What bugs me the most about presentations from Japanese students is that they have a horrible tendency to either read from a script (or even straight out of a paper) or they memorize what they want to say. Either way, when they present, their brains are off and this is a bad thing... especially when it comes to audience interaction (ie. answering questions or checking to make sure they understand what they are talking about).
So anyways, I did make my presentation and the response was well recieved. I would go on to explaining them how learning a new language is also about learning how to think in that language. They were exceptionally intreagued at the question I posed at them on how they think in Japanese. The argument being that not every word they want to say is chosen in advance but selected in a flow as they speak.
Understanding this flow in a new language is imperative to learning a new language. It also requires that the speaker to think in that language, which something that does not happen when you memorize particular lines from a text book... which is exactly how students in Japan are taught English. I do feel somewhat fortunate that I am a product of the Canadian education system (in the sense that students are encouraged to think, more so than places, say in Japan).
It seems that as a resut of my presentations, the professors from each respective labs have decided that they are going to implement either an "English hour" or "English day" in their labs to encourage students to speak English using my technique. The students, at first were cold to the idea, but in the end they were pretty enthusiastic about it-- they would be dropping the old method of learning English behind them and looking forward to immersing themselves in the English language. I am very glad that they've been inspired... because everything starts with a little inspiration. I can only hope that their linguistic ambitions becomes fruitfuly prosperous.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Better than nothing and my schedule for the next 2 months
Today is again, my lab's really long bi-weekly meeting. It's currently 9:15 pm and we started at 6:30 pm. We are closing in to the 3 hour mark and we have 3~4 people left to present which will probably run the meeting to 10:00 pm.
Fortunately for me, I haven't been sitting here idly for the last 3 hours.
Tomorrow I have a presentation for my oxides class, which covers the oxidization of metals at high temperatures, a somewhat benign topic. Last week, I did a presentation for that class and for bonus marks, the professor asked if anyone would be willing to do a second presentation for the last few chapters (as of last week, we have rotated through all the students). "Sure, why not" I thought. Turns out I was in for a busy week.
I skipped out on 2 assignments for my numerical analysis class and thought that the final assignment would be due on the Tuesday. I figured that I would burn through Monday and finish all 3 and hand them in (it seems, that most professors are OK with students handing in their assignment late... as for me, I totaly forgot that we had the assignment when they were due).
Tuesday and Wedensday would be experiments days-- last week I was quite busy with bringing 3 new exchange students up to speed at the lab when they arrived. Helped them out with registration and adminisration and getting them settled in and one of them would be working with me on my project. Since I've been helping everyone out, I hadn't much time to do much experimentation on my own. The lab report meeting for my group was today, giving me 2 days to churn out some preliminary results. They weren't pretty (well one of them was) but I got something done.
Tomorrow (Thursday) is my presentation for the oxides class and I just started reading my chapter for presentation and finished making my slides. All that's left is to scan some pictures from the book and put them in.
On Saturday and Sunday I'll be skipping out of my weekend lab meeting to attend a seminar camp held by another lab to do a presentation in English by request of a professor acquaintence of mine (who is also a friend of my supervisor). Apparently they want to learn how a native English speaker presents and to learn from me. As for me, I'll be learning about their research topics over the weekend at the retreat.
After the weekend, I have 2 simple simulations to program for my numerical analysis class, a seminar presentation for my lab the next weekend (hopefully, I can kill 2 birds with one stone and present about simulation techniques), prepare for 2 exams for my classes and write a simulation for my controls course for an assignment.
For August, I need to hit the experiments hard and prepare a for a 1 hour lab presentation which sumarizes what I've been doing for the last 4 months. I need more data and results to talk about and then head off for an internship for 10 days.
So, that's what I've got on my slate for the next 2 months. Oh and I have to fit in some fun in there... some how.
Fortunately for me, I haven't been sitting here idly for the last 3 hours.
Tomorrow I have a presentation for my oxides class, which covers the oxidization of metals at high temperatures, a somewhat benign topic. Last week, I did a presentation for that class and for bonus marks, the professor asked if anyone would be willing to do a second presentation for the last few chapters (as of last week, we have rotated through all the students). "Sure, why not" I thought. Turns out I was in for a busy week.
I skipped out on 2 assignments for my numerical analysis class and thought that the final assignment would be due on the Tuesday. I figured that I would burn through Monday and finish all 3 and hand them in (it seems, that most professors are OK with students handing in their assignment late... as for me, I totaly forgot that we had the assignment when they were due).
Tuesday and Wedensday would be experiments days-- last week I was quite busy with bringing 3 new exchange students up to speed at the lab when they arrived. Helped them out with registration and adminisration and getting them settled in and one of them would be working with me on my project. Since I've been helping everyone out, I hadn't much time to do much experimentation on my own. The lab report meeting for my group was today, giving me 2 days to churn out some preliminary results. They weren't pretty (well one of them was) but I got something done.
Tomorrow (Thursday) is my presentation for the oxides class and I just started reading my chapter for presentation and finished making my slides. All that's left is to scan some pictures from the book and put them in.
On Saturday and Sunday I'll be skipping out of my weekend lab meeting to attend a seminar camp held by another lab to do a presentation in English by request of a professor acquaintence of mine (who is also a friend of my supervisor). Apparently they want to learn how a native English speaker presents and to learn from me. As for me, I'll be learning about their research topics over the weekend at the retreat.
After the weekend, I have 2 simple simulations to program for my numerical analysis class, a seminar presentation for my lab the next weekend (hopefully, I can kill 2 birds with one stone and present about simulation techniques), prepare for 2 exams for my classes and write a simulation for my controls course for an assignment.
For August, I need to hit the experiments hard and prepare a for a 1 hour lab presentation which sumarizes what I've been doing for the last 4 months. I need more data and results to talk about and then head off for an internship for 10 days.
So, that's what I've got on my slate for the next 2 months. Oh and I have to fit in some fun in there... some how.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Flexible Hours and Productivity
Here's something interesting that sleep taught me.
On Sleep and Productivity
My sleeping schedule has gotten quite strange recently. What is means is that I've been going to bed say at 3~4 am regularly and getting up at about 8 or 10 ish depending on the day (equates to about 4~6 hours) of sleep a day.
I seem to be operating allright through the mornings and I get rather tired by the afternoon (ie. sufficiently tired that I lose focus) where I require a nap for about 1~1.5 hours before my mind is refreshed and once more at at about 7 pm ish. There are some nice rows of padded seats in the building in some of the lounge areas which are ideal for naps.
After realizing how nice it is to take a nap while working to refresh myself and bring back my effectiveness, I've come to realize how impossible doing this would be for certain companies where you earn a hourly wage, a method that I think should be re-evaluated for certain job sectors.
In what I do... well reserach and homework at the moment. I have found that working while tired is more detrimental compared to not working at all. Suppose you spend an entire day preparing a sample and during one of your process steps you mangle the sample up by washing it in the wrong chemical or something. Immediately, the sample is toast and I would have to start over again. This has happened to me a few times.
This doesn't necessarily just applies to experimentation, but also working. There have been times where I've been working on homework sets while fatigued. I can spend hours trying to wrap my head around it but get absolutely no where. I've found that with a much more alert mind that I can hammer these problems much more efficently, say in 2 hours instead of 4 for example.
Time and Productivity
Unfortunately, working in an hourly wage system does not appreciate the concept of productivity nor does it promote it... short of discrete promotions that occur or salary raises which occur at irregular intervals. Why be efficient when you can get time and a half working overtime?
What would be an interesting paradigm shift in the working world is a shift from hourly to productivity compensation. Productivity based consumption exists in the realm of people working for their own company or what they earn is directly related to how much they can sell or produce. I would have to say that it is ironic that salary based pay still exists in the capitalistic market economy-- not all services and products are made equal, nor is the productivity of a person.
Where do productive people go?
Productive people, move into positions such as project leaders or as of recently, into start up companies where they can work on their own. Both kinds of positions are inherently similar in the sense that produtive people end up into directive positions where work occurs on their own terms.
For people in start up companies, or those working for themselves, productivity is far more important than working long hours... and in reality, very productive people tend to be very productive and work long hours, *especially* when working for themselves, the reason being is that they are doing their best to leverage their productivity to make the most gains out of it. I would bet that you would not find highly productive people working on salary in any organization, but instead out on their own and if you want to work with them, you too should also be in the same environment.
On Sleep and Productivity
My sleeping schedule has gotten quite strange recently. What is means is that I've been going to bed say at 3~4 am regularly and getting up at about 8 or 10 ish depending on the day (equates to about 4~6 hours) of sleep a day.
I seem to be operating allright through the mornings and I get rather tired by the afternoon (ie. sufficiently tired that I lose focus) where I require a nap for about 1~1.5 hours before my mind is refreshed and once more at at about 7 pm ish. There are some nice rows of padded seats in the building in some of the lounge areas which are ideal for naps.
After realizing how nice it is to take a nap while working to refresh myself and bring back my effectiveness, I've come to realize how impossible doing this would be for certain companies where you earn a hourly wage, a method that I think should be re-evaluated for certain job sectors.
In what I do... well reserach and homework at the moment. I have found that working while tired is more detrimental compared to not working at all. Suppose you spend an entire day preparing a sample and during one of your process steps you mangle the sample up by washing it in the wrong chemical or something. Immediately, the sample is toast and I would have to start over again. This has happened to me a few times.
This doesn't necessarily just applies to experimentation, but also working. There have been times where I've been working on homework sets while fatigued. I can spend hours trying to wrap my head around it but get absolutely no where. I've found that with a much more alert mind that I can hammer these problems much more efficently, say in 2 hours instead of 4 for example.
Time and Productivity
Unfortunately, working in an hourly wage system does not appreciate the concept of productivity nor does it promote it... short of discrete promotions that occur or salary raises which occur at irregular intervals. Why be efficient when you can get time and a half working overtime?
What would be an interesting paradigm shift in the working world is a shift from hourly to productivity compensation. Productivity based consumption exists in the realm of people working for their own company or what they earn is directly related to how much they can sell or produce. I would have to say that it is ironic that salary based pay still exists in the capitalistic market economy-- not all services and products are made equal, nor is the productivity of a person.
Where do productive people go?
Productive people, move into positions such as project leaders or as of recently, into start up companies where they can work on their own. Both kinds of positions are inherently similar in the sense that produtive people end up into directive positions where work occurs on their own terms.
For people in start up companies, or those working for themselves, productivity is far more important than working long hours... and in reality, very productive people tend to be very productive and work long hours, *especially* when working for themselves, the reason being is that they are doing their best to leverage their productivity to make the most gains out of it. I would bet that you would not find highly productive people working on salary in any organization, but instead out on their own and if you want to work with them, you too should also be in the same environment.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Will our blogs stop one day? Why did we start?
I have a short list of blogs I go through daily. All of them are blogs of friends. At one point or another, the frequency at which they post has either slowed or come to a stop. What I wonder, is what causes people to stop?
Everyone starts blogging for different reasons. Some people do it to stay in touch with friend, others do it for attention, there are even people out there that do it for money. But for the case of my friends around me that blog, they mostly post little blurbs of what they're doing online. For what reason did they start? and for what reason do they stop?
There are times when I haven't been able to post. Most of the time, I don't post because I've been too busy. Mainly because of labwork or heading out to all sort of events in my spare time. Quite often, I don't find the time to make the detailed thoughtful posts like I used to before becoming an official member of this lab. I still would like to write none the less when I do have time... but I do have a reason for writing.
For most of my friends that started blogging, it started as a social movement. It's something that friends did and online communities resulted from it. If you were to look at many blogs on the internet, you would find that most blogs have links to other blogs. Blogging is a social phenomena. For what reason do most people blog? I would say that most people start either to join social networks or for personal attention (not that personal attention is a bad thing, blogs are ment to be read!). Your friends would read your blog, sometimes they'd leave you a comment or even chat about what you've been posting. Blogging is about attention.
But what if one day, you were bored of the attention online? Perhaps after a while you were getting none? Would you still blog? It depends... if attention was what you wanted (or even, if you still wanted it). In the general cases, attention is why most people started and likely the same reason they stopped.
I started writing for different reasons. I started because I was inspired by other well thoughtout writers on the net and for reason that I wanted to improve my writing. I used to be a horrible writer before.
I have learned much about writing along the way. Writing is a tool to solidify incoherent inklings of ideas into something concrete. Most ideas that remain in my mind atleast, are exceptionally fleeting -- almost immediately gone when I start thinking about something else and they only subconsciously exist. Writing prevents that from happening. I have touched on this topic before.
There is more to blogging than just getting your ideas on to "paper" (or rather the "web" in this case), publishing online does force one to write more coherently that one would normally in say a notebook of random ideas. I know that what I post online will post one day be read by someone and what I write must make sense to others. In the case of my notebook, it just needs to make sense to me (and there are times when I look back at it, that even I can't tell what I was thinking before). Writing for me, is a way of refining ideas and offers me the opportunity to scrutinze them more closely than I would usualy if I were scribbling them into a book. This, to me, has been a very important feature to blogging.
Everyone starts blogging for different reasons. Some people do it to stay in touch with friend, others do it for attention, there are even people out there that do it for money. But for the case of my friends around me that blog, they mostly post little blurbs of what they're doing online. For what reason did they start? and for what reason do they stop?
There are times when I haven't been able to post. Most of the time, I don't post because I've been too busy. Mainly because of labwork or heading out to all sort of events in my spare time. Quite often, I don't find the time to make the detailed thoughtful posts like I used to before becoming an official member of this lab. I still would like to write none the less when I do have time... but I do have a reason for writing.
For most of my friends that started blogging, it started as a social movement. It's something that friends did and online communities resulted from it. If you were to look at many blogs on the internet, you would find that most blogs have links to other blogs. Blogging is a social phenomena. For what reason do most people blog? I would say that most people start either to join social networks or for personal attention (not that personal attention is a bad thing, blogs are ment to be read!). Your friends would read your blog, sometimes they'd leave you a comment or even chat about what you've been posting. Blogging is about attention.
But what if one day, you were bored of the attention online? Perhaps after a while you were getting none? Would you still blog? It depends... if attention was what you wanted (or even, if you still wanted it). In the general cases, attention is why most people started and likely the same reason they stopped.
I started writing for different reasons. I started because I was inspired by other well thoughtout writers on the net and for reason that I wanted to improve my writing. I used to be a horrible writer before.
I have learned much about writing along the way. Writing is a tool to solidify incoherent inklings of ideas into something concrete. Most ideas that remain in my mind atleast, are exceptionally fleeting -- almost immediately gone when I start thinking about something else and they only subconsciously exist. Writing prevents that from happening. I have touched on this topic before.
There is more to blogging than just getting your ideas on to "paper" (or rather the "web" in this case), publishing online does force one to write more coherently that one would normally in say a notebook of random ideas. I know that what I post online will post one day be read by someone and what I write must make sense to others. In the case of my notebook, it just needs to make sense to me (and there are times when I look back at it, that even I can't tell what I was thinking before). Writing for me, is a way of refining ideas and offers me the opportunity to scrutinze them more closely than I would usualy if I were scribbling them into a book. This, to me, has been a very important feature to blogging.
The Game of International Friendship (sarcasm)
Today was a long day. I was out with friends till late, woke up early for my weekly Saturday meetings, taught English after the meeting and off to a Tempura Garden party with a vounteer friend of mine. The group for the evening was a bunch of international students from Iran, Netherlands (I think), Austrailia, Mexico and me (from Canada).
So with an international bunch of people what game did we deem appropriate to play? But of course! The game of world domination-- RISK! What else? I thought that was mildy amusing. Don't you?
So with an international bunch of people what game did we deem appropriate to play? But of course! The game of world domination-- RISK! What else? I thought that was mildy amusing. Don't you?
Electrical Cost Analysis (and how much it costs to run a webpage!)
I have never paid my electrical bills directly before, since moving out of a dorm from a dorm into an appartment. For the past few months, the total electrical costs for an appartment of 3 people costed approximately $76 bucks per month. Actually, last month electrcity costed us about $90 between 3 people. Which equates to $30 bucks/person. When I used to live in the dorms I only paid about $22 for electricity for some and up to $30 in the winter seasons when I used electric heaters in the winter. The thing about living in the dorms is that everyone gets a combined itemized bill, but the amount of power I used was never listed so I didn't know how much power I was using at the time.
Personally, I automatically assumed that pretty much all utility costs would be somewhat cheaper when moving in with roomies. The one thing that (obviously) shouldn't scale down on the per people count is electricity. There are other costs that do scale down however, things like "basic charges" which utility companies charge you regardless of the amount of energy you use. For example, listed on my energy bill is a $10 "basic charge" which is divided by 3 between us.
I made a quick estimate of energy usage at our home and I'll present my results below.
Cost per KWh (kilo watt hours in Japan) ~ 6 cents
Note: I guessed at the number of hours we used each electrical applience. Monthly costs are estimates!
Light bulbs (fluorescent):
4 bulbs * 70 watts @ 6 hours/day= 1.68KWh/day = 50.4 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $3 for lighting between 3 people ($1/person)
Fridge:
336 watts (estimate) @ 24 hours/day = 8.064KWh/month = 241.92 KWh/month
Cost/Month~ $14.50 for a fridge
Computer (laptops) :
70 watts @ 6 hours/day = 1.26KWh/day = 37.8 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $2.27 for notebooks between 3 people ($0.70/person)
Estimated Energy Use = 330 KWh/month
Measured Energy Use = 322 KWh/month
Error in estimate = 2.5%
These numbers look reasonable.
Hot water bill (electrically heated):
Measured power consumed: 179 KWh/month
Calculated wattage --> 247 Watts (this number is within reason)
Meaning that the water boiler uses as much power as say 2.5 100 watt light bulbs!
Cost/Month = $28 (the KWh/hour is on a different, but higher rate for some reason)
Question: What does it cost to host your own server/web server from home?
I am considering putting together a server for the home using old desktop computer parts I salvaged from the dump site at the university (note: Desktop computers, generally use more power). I currently have an operating 1 Ghz computer on hand. So, what does it cost to run my own server at home for 24/7? Assuming that the computer runs at about 200 Watts (at about 50% load of a 400 Watt power supply) for 24/7 the total works out to $8.64/month just in electricity costs!
Here's the interesting point: According to some webpage host providers, the cost to buy webspace is approximately $4/month! Assuming that you're hosting only 1 webpage from home, it's cheaper to leave the computer off.
Personally, I automatically assumed that pretty much all utility costs would be somewhat cheaper when moving in with roomies. The one thing that (obviously) shouldn't scale down on the per people count is electricity. There are other costs that do scale down however, things like "basic charges" which utility companies charge you regardless of the amount of energy you use. For example, listed on my energy bill is a $10 "basic charge" which is divided by 3 between us.
I made a quick estimate of energy usage at our home and I'll present my results below.
Cost per KWh (kilo watt hours in Japan) ~ 6 cents
Note: I guessed at the number of hours we used each electrical applience. Monthly costs are estimates!
Light bulbs (fluorescent):
4 bulbs * 70 watts @ 6 hours/day= 1.68KWh/day = 50.4 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $3 for lighting between 3 people ($1/person)
Fridge:
336 watts (estimate) @ 24 hours/day = 8.064KWh/month = 241.92 KWh/month
Cost/Month~ $14.50 for a fridge
Computer (laptops) :
70 watts @ 6 hours/day = 1.26KWh/day = 37.8 KWh/month
Cost/Month ~ $2.27 for notebooks between 3 people ($0.70/person)
Estimated Energy Use = 330 KWh/month
Measured Energy Use = 322 KWh/month
Error in estimate = 2.5%
These numbers look reasonable.
Hot water bill (electrically heated):
Measured power consumed: 179 KWh/month
Calculated wattage --> 247 Watts (this number is within reason)
Meaning that the water boiler uses as much power as say 2.5 100 watt light bulbs!
Cost/Month = $28 (the KWh/hour is on a different, but higher rate for some reason)
Question: What does it cost to host your own server/web server from home?
I am considering putting together a server for the home using old desktop computer parts I salvaged from the dump site at the university (note: Desktop computers, generally use more power). I currently have an operating 1 Ghz computer on hand. So, what does it cost to run my own server at home for 24/7? Assuming that the computer runs at about 200 Watts (at about 50% load of a 400 Watt power supply) for 24/7 the total works out to $8.64/month just in electricity costs!
Here's the interesting point: According to some webpage host providers, the cost to buy webspace is approximately $4/month! Assuming that you're hosting only 1 webpage from home, it's cheaper to leave the computer off.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
A Crash Course in English (and German)
I've been teaching English in Japan for about a year now... and now I've got a stronger understanding of the mechanics of grammar. The point that you'll never start understanding something until you start teaching rings absolutely true. Quite a long time, I've always taken my ability to speak the English language for granted-- it was always second nature, something that I never took the time to think about. Now that I've spent countless hours teaching my students the mechanics of the English language, I have now come to appreciate the mechanics of grammar (something I never bothered to learn as a child). After developing an appreciation for the mechanics of English grammar, I realized that is becomes significantly easier to learn new languages and use more complicated structures.
Let's start by understanding how we use english. In English we use a Subject-Verb-Object structure for presenting our ideas. For example, "I ate cake" is a grammaticaly correct sentence. The subject is "I" the verb is "ate" and the object is "cake."
As grammatically correct as "I ate cake" is, it is quite a boring senctence. So, how does one advance from the most rudimentary sentences in English? Simple, we start adding more detailed information to make sentences more interesting. For example, "I ate cake with my friends at the park." Now we are starting to get to the level where most of us speak. What is the difference here? I used the words "with" and "at" to include more detailed information into the sentence. Interestingly these words do not count as verbs, but rather, they are prepositions. Prepositions are words that you use to add additional information. Which in the case of my previous sentence was "with my friends" and "at the park."
It is my understanding that prepositions are just like verbs. Meaning, for example my sentence "I ate cake" becomes the new subject the "with" becomes the new verb and "friends" is the new object. As a result, prepositions can be chained to add additional information to a sentence (indefinately... and if you do it too many times, it becomes the famed "run on sentence").
Taking a quick look at the class of prepositions, we have words such as "with", "at", "for", "before", "after", "so", "because" and etc. To start taking the steps away from the most basic sentences into more advanced English, the usage of these prepositions are absolutely necessary. So I immediately thought "what if I started using these words in another language? Would be immedately be able to speak more complicated sentences in a different language?"
I experimented in German today with some of my German lab mates using this thought process. First I started with a simple sentence "I drank tea." I asked my German friends to translate each of these words in to German and srung them in the same English grammatical structure. It worked!
Now I asked for my German friends to give me the German word for "with" and I inserted my labmate's name and I could immediately say "I drank tea with Jan" (Jan being the name of one of my labmates). And my German friends were immediately impressed. Sure my grammar wasn't 100% correct, but I could immediately start communicating more detailed ideas.
Now the real trick is to start understanding the purpose of some of the major word groups and understand their relation to communicating ideas. If you can get this down, then learning new languages should be a snap!
Let's start by understanding how we use english. In English we use a Subject-Verb-Object structure for presenting our ideas. For example, "I ate cake" is a grammaticaly correct sentence. The subject is "I" the verb is "ate" and the object is "cake."
As grammatically correct as "I ate cake" is, it is quite a boring senctence. So, how does one advance from the most rudimentary sentences in English? Simple, we start adding more detailed information to make sentences more interesting. For example, "I ate cake with my friends at the park." Now we are starting to get to the level where most of us speak. What is the difference here? I used the words "with" and "at" to include more detailed information into the sentence. Interestingly these words do not count as verbs, but rather, they are prepositions. Prepositions are words that you use to add additional information. Which in the case of my previous sentence was "with my friends" and "at the park."
It is my understanding that prepositions are just like verbs. Meaning, for example my sentence "I ate cake" becomes the new subject the "with" becomes the new verb and "friends" is the new object. As a result, prepositions can be chained to add additional information to a sentence (indefinately... and if you do it too many times, it becomes the famed "run on sentence").
Taking a quick look at the class of prepositions, we have words such as "with", "at", "for", "before", "after", "so", "because" and etc. To start taking the steps away from the most basic sentences into more advanced English, the usage of these prepositions are absolutely necessary. So I immediately thought "what if I started using these words in another language? Would be immedately be able to speak more complicated sentences in a different language?"
I experimented in German today with some of my German lab mates using this thought process. First I started with a simple sentence "I drank tea." I asked my German friends to translate each of these words in to German and srung them in the same English grammatical structure. It worked!
Now I asked for my German friends to give me the German word for "with" and I inserted my labmate's name and I could immediately say "I drank tea with Jan" (Jan being the name of one of my labmates). And my German friends were immediately impressed. Sure my grammar wasn't 100% correct, but I could immediately start communicating more detailed ideas.
Now the real trick is to start understanding the purpose of some of the major word groups and understand their relation to communicating ideas. If you can get this down, then learning new languages should be a snap!
Monday, July 03, 2006
My Best Canada Day
My best Canada Day was in Japan. Kuni and I decided to host a big Canada day party in Sendai. Kuni, having spent nearly an entire year in Canada, has many fond memories during his stay there. That, me and our other roomie, Olympia, being Canadian, we figure that it would be really cool if we put a big Canada day party together where the 3 of us would call in our friends and celebrate together. What transpired was awesome.
After some planning, we had decided on hosting a big BBQ in a park by a river. We supplied the drinks and our guests would bring their own food to grill and we even had fireworks too boot too! Me, Kuni and Olympia all came out in "Canadian t-shirts," ironically all borrowed from Kuni! Oddly I didn't bring any Canadian t-shirts, just my Roots back pack.
All in all, about 50 people came out to the event. I even managed to invite another Canadian I met randomly in Sendai out (and she brought in Maple syrup cookies!). We belted out O'Canada, some Japanese friends belted out the Japanese anthem and some of us even also belted out the American anthem too (well their day is on July 4th!).
The party did have a few hitches though. It poured in the evening. Fortunately there was a bridge near by that we relocated to and had a great time. It stopped later at night and we had an unexpected guest-- a firefly (amazingly beautiful... and it glowed green!).
Unfortunately, most of my friends didn't have cars or BBQ equipment on a large scale. But , fortunately Kuni did. Kuni, awesome job on the organization! Ps. Sorry about forgetting the aluminum wire and gum tape :P
We celebreated until midnight, packed up the tables, booze, equipment and garbage. A cop patrol car came by and was wondering what we were doing. They took my ID just incase we left garbage behind or something and were left unhassled.
Pictures below:
Friends and I
Nothing wrong with a few pretty faces!
Everyone at the grill
Here's the grill, without flash!
Everyone's all smiles!
Need a sparkly smoke?
Fireworks bonanza!
Kuni with a "Canada Eh!" shirt!
Hope you guys had a great Canada Day back home!
After some planning, we had decided on hosting a big BBQ in a park by a river. We supplied the drinks and our guests would bring their own food to grill and we even had fireworks too boot too! Me, Kuni and Olympia all came out in "Canadian t-shirts," ironically all borrowed from Kuni! Oddly I didn't bring any Canadian t-shirts, just my Roots back pack.
All in all, about 50 people came out to the event. I even managed to invite another Canadian I met randomly in Sendai out (and she brought in Maple syrup cookies!). We belted out O'Canada, some Japanese friends belted out the Japanese anthem and some of us even also belted out the American anthem too (well their day is on July 4th!).
The party did have a few hitches though. It poured in the evening. Fortunately there was a bridge near by that we relocated to and had a great time. It stopped later at night and we had an unexpected guest-- a firefly (amazingly beautiful... and it glowed green!).
Unfortunately, most of my friends didn't have cars or BBQ equipment on a large scale. But , fortunately Kuni did. Kuni, awesome job on the organization! Ps. Sorry about forgetting the aluminum wire and gum tape :P
We celebreated until midnight, packed up the tables, booze, equipment and garbage. A cop patrol car came by and was wondering what we were doing. They took my ID just incase we left garbage behind or something and were left unhassled.
Pictures below:
Friends and I
Nothing wrong with a few pretty faces!
Everyone at the grill
Here's the grill, without flash!
Everyone's all smiles!
Need a sparkly smoke?
Fireworks bonanza!
Kuni with a "Canada Eh!" shirt!Hope you guys had a great Canada Day back home!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Oh no!!! Internship bust
What horrible luck, probably serves me right.
Today was the "Paper scissors rock" tournament to decide where people would be going for their internship. To put it bluntly, I got screwed.
My number 1 and 2 choices were Sharp and Fujitsu. 6 people for 2 positions at Sharp... suffice to say, I was one of the first losers from that round leaving me with Fujitsu in Tokyo. For Fujitsu I would face one other person for the position. It didn't end well in my favor.
With most companies already picked out by other companies, I was left with places that either wouldn't take foreign students or in places that were in Sendai (I wanted to get out of Sendai for my internship). I got stuck with a polymer research institute in Utsunomiya. Atleast the Gyoza there is good... but the 10 day term that I'll be working there at will have me miss the Jazz Festival in Sendai. It ends on the 15th of Sept.
Well, consolation is that the Gyoza is good...
Today was the "Paper scissors rock" tournament to decide where people would be going for their internship. To put it bluntly, I got screwed.
My number 1 and 2 choices were Sharp and Fujitsu. 6 people for 2 positions at Sharp... suffice to say, I was one of the first losers from that round leaving me with Fujitsu in Tokyo. For Fujitsu I would face one other person for the position. It didn't end well in my favor.
With most companies already picked out by other companies, I was left with places that either wouldn't take foreign students or in places that were in Sendai (I wanted to get out of Sendai for my internship). I got stuck with a polymer research institute in Utsunomiya. Atleast the Gyoza there is good... but the 10 day term that I'll be working there at will have me miss the Jazz Festival in Sendai. It ends on the 15th of Sept.
Well, consolation is that the Gyoza is good...
It's going to be busy for the next little while
This next month is going to be a little busy for me; and here are the reasons why:
Comming Tuesday -- Fluid Mechanics Test (in Japanese)
The exam itself isn't going to be too hard. There are no equations or anything. We are presented with a bunch of data and points that the teacher made in classes an are expected to answer some thinking questions for the test. The trick is to be able to read the Japanese, understand it and make myself understood. Got the practice plan down... read the material, write out notes in Japanese and write out mock questions for myself and answer them in Japanese. Hoepfully I can have this down in a week.
Numerical Analysis
I got a few projects to finish before August. One of them is to make a model of a spring system and determine it's equilibrium point in software. A second project is to either make or use a differential equation solver and solve some kind of boundary value problem. I'm working on the latter at the moment, looking on the web for a solver. I have a problem that I want to solve which is to calulate the electric field concentration that occurs at the tip of a carbon-nano tube. My gut is telling me that the smaller the nano-tubes are the more intense the electrical field magnification.
The interesting thing is that Richard Feynman had problems explaining this phenomina a long time ago in his lecture series. The answer should pop out from modelling the solution... that's what I'm hoping atleast. We'll have to see where this goes.
Control Systems:
A walk in the park. I remember the first time I took the course; I hated it with a passion. The book wasn't enlightening and the professor was horrid. I ended up skipping classes from time to time after facing mental break downs from listening to stuff that made no sense to me.
Round 2 of control systems... after studying differential equations from other parts of physics and math, everything started making sense. Matlab and Mathematica users, eat your heart out! I've been able to model differential equations in Excel in less than half the time. Quick and dirty.
Today my labmates used matlab to model a differential equation representing a swinging pendulum with friction. With no friction, you expect the total energy of the system to stay constant with time. But add increading friction, you expect the system to come to a stop sooner. The problem is that the kids are just playing with the number to see what happens... I saw one guy use the program to automatically generate 400 plots simultaneiously and doesn't understand the results. The computer/calculator is both a blessing and a curse.
Oxidization:
It's criminal the way this course is run. The teacher picks a book in English (and photocopies it for everyone) and makes everyone in class present a chapter in English. It's supposed to be to help train Japanese students for presentations in English. What a mess, no one knows what is going on in class. Either I'm sleeping or working on my laptop doing homework for a different class. I'll be looking forward to my presentation... heh heh heh
Research:
I have a lab presentation comming up in Sept, that and I have an internship thing to do for 2~3 weeks over the summer which means that it's going to cut time out from me to get some appreciable results for my next in lab presentation. That and I want to travel for a few weeks for my up comming summer vacation. Here's hoping that I get some nice results soon.
It's 2:00 am now and I'm getting tired... a little. Time to get some rest.
Comming Tuesday -- Fluid Mechanics Test (in Japanese)
The exam itself isn't going to be too hard. There are no equations or anything. We are presented with a bunch of data and points that the teacher made in classes an are expected to answer some thinking questions for the test. The trick is to be able to read the Japanese, understand it and make myself understood. Got the practice plan down... read the material, write out notes in Japanese and write out mock questions for myself and answer them in Japanese. Hoepfully I can have this down in a week.
Numerical Analysis
I got a few projects to finish before August. One of them is to make a model of a spring system and determine it's equilibrium point in software. A second project is to either make or use a differential equation solver and solve some kind of boundary value problem. I'm working on the latter at the moment, looking on the web for a solver. I have a problem that I want to solve which is to calulate the electric field concentration that occurs at the tip of a carbon-nano tube. My gut is telling me that the smaller the nano-tubes are the more intense the electrical field magnification.
The interesting thing is that Richard Feynman had problems explaining this phenomina a long time ago in his lecture series. The answer should pop out from modelling the solution... that's what I'm hoping atleast. We'll have to see where this goes.
Control Systems:
A walk in the park. I remember the first time I took the course; I hated it with a passion. The book wasn't enlightening and the professor was horrid. I ended up skipping classes from time to time after facing mental break downs from listening to stuff that made no sense to me.
Round 2 of control systems... after studying differential equations from other parts of physics and math, everything started making sense. Matlab and Mathematica users, eat your heart out! I've been able to model differential equations in Excel in less than half the time. Quick and dirty.
Today my labmates used matlab to model a differential equation representing a swinging pendulum with friction. With no friction, you expect the total energy of the system to stay constant with time. But add increading friction, you expect the system to come to a stop sooner. The problem is that the kids are just playing with the number to see what happens... I saw one guy use the program to automatically generate 400 plots simultaneiously and doesn't understand the results. The computer/calculator is both a blessing and a curse.
Oxidization:
It's criminal the way this course is run. The teacher picks a book in English (and photocopies it for everyone) and makes everyone in class present a chapter in English. It's supposed to be to help train Japanese students for presentations in English. What a mess, no one knows what is going on in class. Either I'm sleeping or working on my laptop doing homework for a different class. I'll be looking forward to my presentation... heh heh heh
Research:
I have a lab presentation comming up in Sept, that and I have an internship thing to do for 2~3 weeks over the summer which means that it's going to cut time out from me to get some appreciable results for my next in lab presentation. That and I want to travel for a few weeks for my up comming summer vacation. Here's hoping that I get some nice results soon.
It's 2:00 am now and I'm getting tired... a little. Time to get some rest.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Welcome to Lab part 2
Another summer student arrived at the lab today from Oxford University. I spent most of the afternoon getting him up to speed with registration and such. We went off to meet the head professor. At the most basic level, he's a really nice guy. He just needs a life.
"Welcome to the lab... here are some tour books of Sendai and the Tohoku region"
"Thanks"
"You might not be able to use the Tohoku region though... I think you're going to be busy here"
And the professor said it with a smile. I don't think all of Japan is like this, but this is supposition at the moment. I'll see about it when I start my internship later next month. The company I'll be working at for 2~3 weeks will be finalized tomorrow. Wish me luck, I'm going after Sharp and Fujitsu.
"Welcome to the lab... here are some tour books of Sendai and the Tohoku region"
"Thanks"
"You might not be able to use the Tohoku region though... I think you're going to be busy here"
And the professor said it with a smile. I don't think all of Japan is like this, but this is supposition at the moment. I'll see about it when I start my internship later next month. The company I'll be working at for 2~3 weeks will be finalized tomorrow. Wish me luck, I'm going after Sharp and Fujitsu.
Monday, June 26, 2006
I have to go pee
So I'm in lab meeting now and it's about 8:45 pm and we have another 2~3 more people to go for presentation. Started at 6:30 pm today. Oddly, I'm not as tired as usual going through this meeting. Seriously, we're looking at a 2.5~3 hour meeting every 2 weeks.
So here's today's punch line. Just last week, we have had the arrival of an exchange student that will be here for the next 2 months from California (UC Santa Barbra [sp?]). 2 hours into the meeting he asks me... "do these guys take a break?"
"Nope... they keep on going. You might notice sometimes that the professors fall asleep from time to time"
"Ummm... well I have to go pee"
Welcome to Esashi lab buddy :)
So here's today's punch line. Just last week, we have had the arrival of an exchange student that will be here for the next 2 months from California (UC Santa Barbra [sp?]). 2 hours into the meeting he asks me... "do these guys take a break?"
"Nope... they keep on going. You might notice sometimes that the professors fall asleep from time to time"
"Ummm... well I have to go pee"
Welcome to Esashi lab buddy :)
Friday, June 23, 2006
Setting up for Canada Day
Kuni and I are spearheading an operation to setup the biggest party we can put together to celebrate Canada Day in Japan. Kuni spent about a year in St. Katherines Ontario and had many fond memories of Canada. He still really likes Canada and you can tell by the look of his room, he even hangs a Canadian flag on the wall (not even using a tack to keep the flag pristine).
Our plan is to start in the evening at a park by a river. We'll be setting up a fire and bringing out meats and food for people to fry over the flames. Frisbee, light sports and fireworks for people to enjoy and bring out as many people as possible. I've been getting e-mails for the past week as people are confirming to see if they come out. I have no clue how many people are comming out but we are pretty excited about getting this thing going.
Pictures to follow, it's only but a week away.
Our plan is to start in the evening at a park by a river. We'll be setting up a fire and bringing out meats and food for people to fry over the flames. Frisbee, light sports and fireworks for people to enjoy and bring out as many people as possible. I've been getting e-mails for the past week as people are confirming to see if they come out. I have no clue how many people are comming out but we are pretty excited about getting this thing going.
Pictures to follow, it's only but a week away.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
UBC Geers got Slashdotted!
Check it out! The UBC geers got 3145 mpg in the supermileage competition, enough for Vancouver to Halifax on less than $5 bucks. The only problem is that these cars aren't all that fast!
Things that go "bump" in the night
3 am, I hear a loud thump from the kitchen of my room. Kuni are both awoken startled and proceed to investigate. Fortunately it wasn't a burgler, but a bag of apples that managed to fall from the top of the microwave (which was on top of the fridge) that hit the floor. Odd, I don't remember apples having feet or any sort of moving appendages that would give them any sort of mobility.
With that resolved, we return to our rooms... which are right beside each other and are only separated by a set of sliding doors through the middle. Neither of us could sleep so we spent the next hour chatting. By 4 am, I attempted to try and get some sleep... unfortunately it wasn't so "fruitful".
By 5 am, I had given up on the sleep, got out of bed (rather easily, I am surprised), cooked gyoza (probably woke up Kuni in the process) proceeded to eat breakfast and packed lunch for school. I departed and arrived at the lab by 6:00 am. Right as I arrived, I just realized that I forgot my student ID card that would let me get access to the building, just for kickes, I decided to check the side door into the lab and through the window, I found one of my colleagues at his desk half awake-- he spent the entire night at the lab running a process. Suffice to say, that he let me in.
After that, I grabed, my samples and was off to the electron beam microscope to take a look at a few samples I had made a week back. Took some pictures, returned to the lab... and goofed off for a little before heading into one of the laboratory rooms to get an experiment setup using an atomic force microscope.
I returned back into lab by 9:00 am because I am supposed to meet with a new guy that will be spending a month here from the US that will be working sort of under me for the next month. Unfortunately, the person hasn't showed yet so I am here waiting at my desk for him... and right now I am starting to get super sleepy. I think I'll be going home early tonight.
With that resolved, we return to our rooms... which are right beside each other and are only separated by a set of sliding doors through the middle. Neither of us could sleep so we spent the next hour chatting. By 4 am, I attempted to try and get some sleep... unfortunately it wasn't so "fruitful".
By 5 am, I had given up on the sleep, got out of bed (rather easily, I am surprised), cooked gyoza (probably woke up Kuni in the process) proceeded to eat breakfast and packed lunch for school. I departed and arrived at the lab by 6:00 am. Right as I arrived, I just realized that I forgot my student ID card that would let me get access to the building, just for kickes, I decided to check the side door into the lab and through the window, I found one of my colleagues at his desk half awake-- he spent the entire night at the lab running a process. Suffice to say, that he let me in.
After that, I grabed, my samples and was off to the electron beam microscope to take a look at a few samples I had made a week back. Took some pictures, returned to the lab... and goofed off for a little before heading into one of the laboratory rooms to get an experiment setup using an atomic force microscope.
I returned back into lab by 9:00 am because I am supposed to meet with a new guy that will be spending a month here from the US that will be working sort of under me for the next month. Unfortunately, the person hasn't showed yet so I am here waiting at my desk for him... and right now I am starting to get super sleepy. I think I'll be going home early tonight.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Time for a diet?
There comes a time, when youthful skinny person's metabolizm wears out. That time often occurs somewhere right after getting your undergraduate degree. There were some articles I read back in my unversity days that guys start gaining weight yearly at some point in their lives at approximately 1~2 pounds/year.
Since getting in to lab, my body mass has been increasing. I arrived into lab at 63 kg (139 lb) and weighed in at 69 kg (151 lb). To be honest, 151 lb is my average body weight during school so this shouldn't be much of a surprise, but one day, my usual "in school" and "out of school" mass won't be so cyclic; but instead, take a climb like a plane at lift off.
I should take a note that when I am talking about mass, I'm talking about fat. Take heed that fat and muscles are different things entirely, you can be heavy with muscles or fat. The point is that one looks better. I have to explain this point most oftenly when I invite girls (no offence if you know this already) to go work out with me when they think they're getting flabby (and no, I don't use it as a pick up line :P But *you* could if you like :P).
Well, in the face of tons of things to do... I'll make a post about that later on, it's time for me to hit the gym for a little.
Since getting in to lab, my body mass has been increasing. I arrived into lab at 63 kg (139 lb) and weighed in at 69 kg (151 lb). To be honest, 151 lb is my average body weight during school so this shouldn't be much of a surprise, but one day, my usual "in school" and "out of school" mass won't be so cyclic; but instead, take a climb like a plane at lift off.
I should take a note that when I am talking about mass, I'm talking about fat. Take heed that fat and muscles are different things entirely, you can be heavy with muscles or fat. The point is that one looks better. I have to explain this point most oftenly when I invite girls (no offence if you know this already) to go work out with me when they think they're getting flabby (and no, I don't use it as a pick up line :P But *you* could if you like :P).
Well, in the face of tons of things to do... I'll make a post about that later on, it's time for me to hit the gym for a little.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Did you write on your blog?
Hehehe, Kuni just asked me seconds ago: "Did you write on your blog?" Heh turns out that he's reading my most recent entry. Hahaha, I'm writing on it again... wonder if he'll notice :P As big as the internet is, sometimes it's a small place :)
Roomies
I came home at about 10:00 tonight, kind of glad to see my roomies. The night before was a disaster. I destroyed atleast $300 worth of equipment and a week's worth of work, possibly more if things get screwed up. This is a life story but today I ain't going to get into it.
I had some left over Korean seaweed. Let me get of saying that the stuff is great. I had it before from another friend that left Japan and another friend heard that I loved the stuff gave it to me as a birtheday present to me... and I still love it. I gave a slice to Kuni and he told me right off... "this would be great with some alcohol"... nuff said, I bought a bottle of alcohol and we took it down tonight and as of this moment I am tipsy as a result of it.
Many things were said tonight and I realize today, that roomies are just like family. Essentially, we are family. It's great to have friends that I can call a family. Sometimes not everything can be said, but sometimes there are times when tough things things the can be said.
It's funny to think that I got a random phone call one day from Kuni asking me if I would be interested in sharing an appartment together with another roomie. The ball was set in motion and I haven't regreted it since. Today Kuni's even offered to correct the little mistakes I make in my normal Japanese speech... the kind of things that normal Japanese people won't do for me because even if I do make mistakes, I am understood; the biggest barrier to becoming fluent in any language.
Kuni has to move out in less than a year, Olympia is still going to be around.. but to be honest, nothing is going to match this house's dynamics. I am going to miss the guy when he is gone, but for the mean time, we are going to have such a kick ass time. I've wanted to see what was life like with roomies since almost graduating out of university, that wish has been granted to me.
I had some left over Korean seaweed. Let me get of saying that the stuff is great. I had it before from another friend that left Japan and another friend heard that I loved the stuff gave it to me as a birtheday present to me... and I still love it. I gave a slice to Kuni and he told me right off... "this would be great with some alcohol"... nuff said, I bought a bottle of alcohol and we took it down tonight and as of this moment I am tipsy as a result of it.
Many things were said tonight and I realize today, that roomies are just like family. Essentially, we are family. It's great to have friends that I can call a family. Sometimes not everything can be said, but sometimes there are times when tough things things the can be said.
It's funny to think that I got a random phone call one day from Kuni asking me if I would be interested in sharing an appartment together with another roomie. The ball was set in motion and I haven't regreted it since. Today Kuni's even offered to correct the little mistakes I make in my normal Japanese speech... the kind of things that normal Japanese people won't do for me because even if I do make mistakes, I am understood; the biggest barrier to becoming fluent in any language.
Kuni has to move out in less than a year, Olympia is still going to be around.. but to be honest, nothing is going to match this house's dynamics. I am going to miss the guy when he is gone, but for the mean time, we are going to have such a kick ass time. I've wanted to see what was life like with roomies since almost graduating out of university, that wish has been granted to me.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
A Picture Update
Here's a picture update of life in Japan:
October (sometime) -- Got my brain scanned (fRMI) and got paid $100 for it!
Results: 100% Sane, 99% genius + 1% uber-genius (red parts indicate brain parts in use)
Actually, it was for an experiment comparing there difference between a native speaker of English vs a non-native (ie Japanese) person interpreting English. I signed up for the experiment solely to get a picture of my brain, the money was a bonus. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the machine. But it was very cool none the less.
A big machine, powerful magnetic fields and all. I laid down read stuff in English and responded to a test by pushing buttons. 2 hours for $100 and a picture of my brain. Priceless!
May 20th Boat Races:
The lab put together 4 teams for long boat races, I was on one of them. We were looking pretty good with our timing and had plenty of speed at our practice (right before the race). The only problem is that my row seat fell off during the race causing us to lose. Ugh... next time gadget... next time!
The topless dude is me!
Yep, that's me!
May 26th -- Safety Training
What else do I do in my spare time? Well I'm a super hero of course! I jump out of buildings, save babies and put out fires.
Left :Me getting ready to jump out of a building (after noticing something wrong)
Right: Landing to safety
What I learned: Don't jump off the 3rd floor of a building with slack in the rope. Duh! Especially with 3 floor's worth of slack. I was hanging off the building because I just noticed a crap load of slack in the rope... stupid saftey people! I should also mention that bungie jumping with a rope that doesn't stretch is also a bad idea. :)
I'm a fireman! Does it mean that I'm hot now?
June 4th -- My Birthday Party:
Why is it that everyone has an infatuation with spelling out my name with random things?
The gang at the party!
What could this be?
Hey it's a French dessert cook book!
That's all for now :)
October (sometime) -- Got my brain scanned (fRMI) and got paid $100 for it!
Results: 100% Sane, 99% genius + 1% uber-genius (red parts indicate brain parts in use)
Actually, it was for an experiment comparing there difference between a native speaker of English vs a non-native (ie Japanese) person interpreting English. I signed up for the experiment solely to get a picture of my brain, the money was a bonus. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the machine. But it was very cool none the less.
A big machine, powerful magnetic fields and all. I laid down read stuff in English and responded to a test by pushing buttons. 2 hours for $100 and a picture of my brain. Priceless!
May 20th Boat Races:
The lab put together 4 teams for long boat races, I was on one of them. We were looking pretty good with our timing and had plenty of speed at our practice (right before the race). The only problem is that my row seat fell off during the race causing us to lose. Ugh... next time gadget... next time!
The topless dude is me!
Yep, that's me!May 26th -- Safety Training
What else do I do in my spare time? Well I'm a super hero of course! I jump out of buildings, save babies and put out fires.
Left :Me getting ready to jump out of a building (after noticing something wrong)
Right: Landing to safety
What I learned: Don't jump off the 3rd floor of a building with slack in the rope. Duh! Especially with 3 floor's worth of slack. I was hanging off the building because I just noticed a crap load of slack in the rope... stupid saftey people! I should also mention that bungie jumping with a rope that doesn't stretch is also a bad idea. :)
I'm a fireman! Does it mean that I'm hot now?June 4th -- My Birthday Party:
Why is it that everyone has an infatuation with spelling out my name with random things?
The gang at the party!
What could this be?
Hey it's a French dessert cook book!That's all for now :)
Oh the pain! Japan vs Austrailia: World Cup
I left lab at about 8:30 yesterday to hit the bar with friends to catch the world cup game with Japan vs Austrailia. There were TV crews at the bar to film everyone's reactions while the game raged on... and so it raged. Lots of cheering, chanting and singing. It especially wild when Japan smacked a goal in the net during the first half of the game. The crowd went wild, my cell was ringing with instant messeges from friends watching the game at other places. I hugged atleast 3~4 random people. Crazy stuff.
In the second half during the last 10 minutes, Austrailia scores a goal when the goalie comes a little too far out to try to knock out a ball during a corner kick. What happens next is unbelieveable-- Austrailia comes back with 2 goals in the last 8 minutes to take Japan down 3-1. Suffice to say that everyone in the bar was heart broken to see the game end like this. It would have been a sure victory. Anyways, a good time was had. Next game, Saturday Japan vs Croatia.
I headed out for coffee with friends after the game at midnight... of an interesting note something of a "do you know Joe in Canada" event happened. Recently, I've been having lots of chance meetings where people know people. Last night, turns out one of the gals in the group heard that I was a student... promptly asks me:
"Are you in Tohoku University?"
"Yes"
"Are you in Engineering?"
"Yeah"
"Are you in Esashi Lab?"
"Um... yeah?"
"Do you know... (such and such)"
"Holy cow! Yeah"
We then shake hands.
Small world... small world indeed. I've also met a friend's date randomly and also met a long lost friend of 7 years in Sendai by chance too. Life never ceases to be interesting.
In the second half during the last 10 minutes, Austrailia scores a goal when the goalie comes a little too far out to try to knock out a ball during a corner kick. What happens next is unbelieveable-- Austrailia comes back with 2 goals in the last 8 minutes to take Japan down 3-1. Suffice to say that everyone in the bar was heart broken to see the game end like this. It would have been a sure victory. Anyways, a good time was had. Next game, Saturday Japan vs Croatia.
I headed out for coffee with friends after the game at midnight... of an interesting note something of a "do you know Joe in Canada" event happened. Recently, I've been having lots of chance meetings where people know people. Last night, turns out one of the gals in the group heard that I was a student... promptly asks me:
"Are you in Tohoku University?"
"Yes"
"Are you in Engineering?"
"Yeah"
"Are you in Esashi Lab?"
"Um... yeah?"
"Do you know... (such and such)"
"Holy cow! Yeah"
We then shake hands.
Small world... small world indeed. I've also met a friend's date randomly and also met a long lost friend of 7 years in Sendai by chance too. Life never ceases to be interesting.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Ask a ninja...
Wanna know what a ninja thinks about tiered internet? Look no further than here. Watch it, it's funny. Serious :)
Friday, June 09, 2006
A Quarter Century
My second birthday away from home, but with friends dropping wishing me well from back home, it feels like part of that home also moved with me to Japan.
I did my b-day party at my place in Japan on Sunday. Invited out the international students and friends over... and the nice thing about having roomies is that they're already at the party. Well that's not entirely true, we still have to coordinate our schedules; for we are busy people.
All in all, there were about 14~15 people that day. I whipped up some honey lemon chicken, soy-sauce style chicken (there was a deal on chicken at the grocery store that day), humus, seafood pasta and a Banana-Pineapple cake for dessert.
If there was one problem for the party, it's that I didn't make enough food. All of the main dishes were gone in the first 30~45 minutes. The international students crowded around the food table and the rest of the other people not too keen on "fighting" with the crowd hung back and didn't end up with much food to eat.
I did get a nice T-shirt, a huge round thing of chocolate, a French dessert cookbook with extra recipes from Nadege (my very cool French friend) and a bottle of 10-year-old port wine (that tasted ever so good). I started preparing for the party at 1 pm that day; it was worth the effort.
On Tuesday, the eve of my birthday, I dropped home right after teaching English in the evening to catch some sleep. At 11:30 pm, Kuni and I headed off to the local convenience store to pick up some booze at the dollar store (crazy no? And they're open 24/7!!!). When I returned, I was surprised to find Sachie over as well with a bottle of Champagne. We popped the Champagne at midnight and celebrated my birthday at midnight. I got a dessert cookbook :) I couldn't have asked for more...
But wait! There's more!
On the Wednesday, we had a lab meeting scheduled and I asked the assistant professor if I could sit this one out and report in the day before. At first he told me that the main professor might not be happy about it... the problem was that the meeting was scheduled with 2 days notice... but I managed to book it off anyways. These guys ought to learn to take it easy sometimes; then again, I might be taking it too easy but that's a different story.
So I did take the evening off, came home and went out with Kuni, Olympia and Sachie for dinner at an Italian restaurant for a b-day dinner. 3 birthday parties!?? Wow, I've aged 3 years in the span of a week! Sachie made me a cake and I got a really nice white-green sports jacket. Awesome.
So now, I'm 25-- quarter of a century old and half way through my twenties. Another 5 more years and I'll be 30. Back home, I used to worry a little about what I might be when I got to 30. I'm now in Japan and people could be 29,30 or 31 and more and you couldn't tell. Age is a relative thing and all that matters is how you feel. And today, I feel great!
I did my b-day party at my place in Japan on Sunday. Invited out the international students and friends over... and the nice thing about having roomies is that they're already at the party. Well that's not entirely true, we still have to coordinate our schedules; for we are busy people.
All in all, there were about 14~15 people that day. I whipped up some honey lemon chicken, soy-sauce style chicken (there was a deal on chicken at the grocery store that day), humus, seafood pasta and a Banana-Pineapple cake for dessert.
If there was one problem for the party, it's that I didn't make enough food. All of the main dishes were gone in the first 30~45 minutes. The international students crowded around the food table and the rest of the other people not too keen on "fighting" with the crowd hung back and didn't end up with much food to eat.
I did get a nice T-shirt, a huge round thing of chocolate, a French dessert cookbook with extra recipes from Nadege (my very cool French friend) and a bottle of 10-year-old port wine (that tasted ever so good). I started preparing for the party at 1 pm that day; it was worth the effort.
On Tuesday, the eve of my birthday, I dropped home right after teaching English in the evening to catch some sleep. At 11:30 pm, Kuni and I headed off to the local convenience store to pick up some booze at the dollar store (crazy no? And they're open 24/7!!!). When I returned, I was surprised to find Sachie over as well with a bottle of Champagne. We popped the Champagne at midnight and celebrated my birthday at midnight. I got a dessert cookbook :) I couldn't have asked for more...
But wait! There's more!
On the Wednesday, we had a lab meeting scheduled and I asked the assistant professor if I could sit this one out and report in the day before. At first he told me that the main professor might not be happy about it... the problem was that the meeting was scheduled with 2 days notice... but I managed to book it off anyways. These guys ought to learn to take it easy sometimes; then again, I might be taking it too easy but that's a different story.
So I did take the evening off, came home and went out with Kuni, Olympia and Sachie for dinner at an Italian restaurant for a b-day dinner. 3 birthday parties!?? Wow, I've aged 3 years in the span of a week! Sachie made me a cake and I got a really nice white-green sports jacket. Awesome.
So now, I'm 25-- quarter of a century old and half way through my twenties. Another 5 more years and I'll be 30. Back home, I used to worry a little about what I might be when I got to 30. I'm now in Japan and people could be 29,30 or 31 and more and you couldn't tell. Age is a relative thing and all that matters is how you feel. And today, I feel great!
Friday, June 02, 2006
What I did last week -- Farmer Justin
So finally I've come around to what I've been wanting to write about since last week but never had the time to do. So here I go....
So last week, I was invited out by a volunteer friend of mine to hit the rice fields and go plant rice. What a trip! My friend, as it turns out knows another friend that is the owner of a rice paddy and is currently going through the planting process (as it is rice planting season now in Japan). The interesting thing about this place is that they do all their work by hand!
From what I am told, nearly 99% of all rice fields in Japan are mechanically planted. The rice field that I went to is sort of different, in that it isn't a commercial production place. The owner of this rice field, Shigeo, plants the rice here purely for self consumption. He does it with friends and I believe they get a cut too.
Shigeo is a very interesting person, somewhat shorter than I and weighing at only 100 pounds, if you were to look at him, you could never guess that he was underweight. He looks incredibly fit. Trained as an economist at university, he worked in Germany for several years getting developers permits to build golf courses-- the kind of things that would get enviromnentalists screaming in a rage. Yet, I have a guy that worked in a development firm running in his own rice field.
Actually, Shigeo also runs a bit of a club called (translated from Japanese) "Let's plant rice" and his motto is to "think in 100 year terms." Quite a contrast between a guy that worked at a company developing golf courses and the same one running a rice field, no?
So this is me with my hands and feet dirty in the rice field with the rest of them.
Let me explain a little about the rice planting process.
After the winter season, the rice paddies are drained and from October till about the end of April the fields are often left alone with vegetation growing in it. Before planing, the excess vegetation is removed to allow for the rice plants to get the most nutrients out of the ground.
In the old days, removal of plants was done by hand and that's the way Shigeo does it. In the present, it's done by tilling and chemicals. The reason being it's more efficient (a word that "work" has a love affair with). In the modern rice fields, the paddy is pumped full of fertilzer and growth chemicals to get the rice to grow big and into a snice grain shape. The telling price we pay is that because of the chemical contents of the paddy, the farmers them selves don't enter their own paddies in bare foot like the way we are in the picture above. The long term effects of these chemicals to the rice aren't well understood and could take many years before anyone notices. What I do know however, is that there is a multitude of life in rice fields that I was planting in... like snails and small bugs... in the other rice fields, there aren't any.
So I ask Shigeio what are the advantages of farming in this manner since it takes longer to plant the rice, he tells me that the taste is a little better (but that could be a subjective thing) but the most important thing is that he tells me that, safety of the food is the most important property. Unfortunatly, the economics of producing safer foods don't play to a farmer's hand. The farmers want efficiency, whatever health problems that might develop long after you've been eating the rice for a long time is the price that the consumers might end up paying for later on.
I did learn something interesting from Shigeo that day, something that I've never considered before... he told me that "that trying to find ways of doing things in the most efficient way possible isn't necessarly the best." The thought more correctly summed up in my opinion is that "other important properties/qualities should not be sacrificed for efficiency."
So that concludes the rice planting talk, so on to other things.
The other interesting things that Shigeo does is that he also grows Shitake mushrooms. Ever wonder how they're grown? First you take some fallen trees, drill holes in them and put in bits of Shitake mushroom spores in. Close up the hole with some styrofoam and in about 8 months you've got Shitake to eat!
Shitake, this one's ahead of the pack.
What a farm of Shitake mushrooms looks like.
Shigeo's living room:
His house designed by his wife
Lunch at Shigeo's: Farmed rice and veggies picked from the forest. Delish!
The farming gang. The guy to the most left is Shigeo.
Aftre getting home, the birthday party where a few people got plastered occured, but in general we all had a good time.
Left: People hanging out in Kuni's Room
Right: Crap, I forgot her name! Note, it's very bad to forget a girl's name!
Toshi falling asleep on my bed after too many drinks.
Well that sums up a little of what went on last week... here comes another weekend! :)
So last week, I was invited out by a volunteer friend of mine to hit the rice fields and go plant rice. What a trip! My friend, as it turns out knows another friend that is the owner of a rice paddy and is currently going through the planting process (as it is rice planting season now in Japan). The interesting thing about this place is that they do all their work by hand!
From what I am told, nearly 99% of all rice fields in Japan are mechanically planted. The rice field that I went to is sort of different, in that it isn't a commercial production place. The owner of this rice field, Shigeo, plants the rice here purely for self consumption. He does it with friends and I believe they get a cut too.
Shigeo is a very interesting person, somewhat shorter than I and weighing at only 100 pounds, if you were to look at him, you could never guess that he was underweight. He looks incredibly fit. Trained as an economist at university, he worked in Germany for several years getting developers permits to build golf courses-- the kind of things that would get enviromnentalists screaming in a rage. Yet, I have a guy that worked in a development firm running in his own rice field.
Actually, Shigeo also runs a bit of a club called (translated from Japanese) "Let's plant rice" and his motto is to "think in 100 year terms." Quite a contrast between a guy that worked at a company developing golf courses and the same one running a rice field, no?
So this is me with my hands and feet dirty in the rice field with the rest of them.
Let me explain a little about the rice planting process.
After the winter season, the rice paddies are drained and from October till about the end of April the fields are often left alone with vegetation growing in it. Before planing, the excess vegetation is removed to allow for the rice plants to get the most nutrients out of the ground.
In the old days, removal of plants was done by hand and that's the way Shigeo does it. In the present, it's done by tilling and chemicals. The reason being it's more efficient (a word that "work" has a love affair with). In the modern rice fields, the paddy is pumped full of fertilzer and growth chemicals to get the rice to grow big and into a snice grain shape. The telling price we pay is that because of the chemical contents of the paddy, the farmers them selves don't enter their own paddies in bare foot like the way we are in the picture above. The long term effects of these chemicals to the rice aren't well understood and could take many years before anyone notices. What I do know however, is that there is a multitude of life in rice fields that I was planting in... like snails and small bugs... in the other rice fields, there aren't any.
So I ask Shigeio what are the advantages of farming in this manner since it takes longer to plant the rice, he tells me that the taste is a little better (but that could be a subjective thing) but the most important thing is that he tells me that, safety of the food is the most important property. Unfortunatly, the economics of producing safer foods don't play to a farmer's hand. The farmers want efficiency, whatever health problems that might develop long after you've been eating the rice for a long time is the price that the consumers might end up paying for later on.
I did learn something interesting from Shigeo that day, something that I've never considered before... he told me that "that trying to find ways of doing things in the most efficient way possible isn't necessarly the best." The thought more correctly summed up in my opinion is that "other important properties/qualities should not be sacrificed for efficiency."
So that concludes the rice planting talk, so on to other things.
The other interesting things that Shigeo does is that he also grows Shitake mushrooms. Ever wonder how they're grown? First you take some fallen trees, drill holes in them and put in bits of Shitake mushroom spores in. Close up the hole with some styrofoam and in about 8 months you've got Shitake to eat!
Shitake, this one's ahead of the pack.
What a farm of Shitake mushrooms looks like.Shigeo's living room:
His house designed by his wife
Lunch at Shigeo's: Farmed rice and veggies picked from the forest. Delish!
The farming gang. The guy to the most left is Shigeo.
Aftre getting home, the birthday party where a few people got plastered occured, but in general we all had a good time.
Left: People hanging out in Kuni's Room
Right: Crap, I forgot her name! Note, it's very bad to forget a girl's name!
Toshi falling asleep on my bed after too many drinks.
Well that sums up a little of what went on last week... here comes another weekend! :)
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