Bucolic Nara

Today was Bunka no Hi - "Culture Day". As far as I can tell, it has no deep meaning except that you get the day off, which was VERY nice. :) Also, they say that on this day, the weather is always good. That was certainly true today.

A crispness pervaded the air as we pushed off on our bicycles this morning, crossing the border into Nara prefecture and pedaling down the road past the rows of identical housing blocks and mundane businesses that characterize the hill I live on... dry cleaning, dentists, a small post office, a massive religious retreat complex where an obscure Brazilian quasi-Christian cult gathers once a month to drink some hallucinogenic brew and trip for an entire weekend, rice stores, motorcycle repair shops, daycare centers, etc.

At the bottom of the hill we turned onto the long, wooded road towards the ancient site of the Emperor's palace. 1300 years ago, this was the capital of Japan. On the way, we stopped by a small roadside shrine, where we saw a middle-aged woman trotting around two stone posts spaced about three meters apart. The kanji on the posts said something about "a hundred times", but we couldn't determine what the purpose was.



Moving on, we spent a short time basking in the sun atop the modern reconstruction of the main hall of the ancient palace, and then we set off for the giant imperial burial mounds, large keystone-shaped islands surrounded by moats just northeast of the palace site. The burial mounds weren't anything spectacular, but it was quite a pleasant bike ride.



Serendipitously, as we were discussing how much less than interesting the burial mounds were, we discovered a bike path leaving to the north. We followed the small road through miles and miles of wild forest, broken only by the occasional small patch of farmland, the workers in the fields as much a part of the background as the trees in the distance, and the occasional "Beware of Perverts" sign, because, well... this is Japan.



Interestingly enough, we found a number of places where people had dumped garbage along the road... very contrary to the general "squeaky-clean" image of Japan. The thing that blew my mind, though, was that about four kilometers down the bike path we found leading away from the burial mounds, we seemed to have tripped a motion sensor, because a bright light came on overhead, and a speaker mounted on an electric pole squawked a tinny announcement that garbage dumping was illegal and please don't spoil the scenery. Why couldn't they just post a sign saying that? Because this is Japan. :)



Next stop: Dreamland! Not far to the east lies an amusement park called Nara Dreamland. I had never seen it in operation and thus assumed it was long defunct, a Land of dusty and crumbling Dreams. As we neared the park we saw road signs with the word "Dreamland" duct-taped over, and arrived to find all the entry gates chained shut, as I had expected. Later I found out that it had been in operation until the end of this summer, when it closed its gates forever. Had I only known, I could have enjoyed a summer of rollercoaster rides and cotton candy, but no more.



As the sun threateningly positioned itself for a sunset, we flew down the mountain on our bikes, taking only a brief side-trip to see a temple on the way home. Within the temple grounds we found a beautiful Japanese garden, an ancient stone sarcophagus from 1500 years ago, several Heian-era Buddhist statues, three enormous beehives that had been ripped off the side of the temple (and were on display for some reason..?) and several beautiful water lilies being cultivated in plastic tubs. The garish blue plastic clashed horribly with the subtle textures of the Japanese garden and wooden buildings, but when I asked the priests about it, none of them seemed to understand what I meant by "out of place". :P



Avoiding the winding country roads for the ride home, we rocketed down the bicycle path running alongside a major highway, twice passing a strange old man who seemed to be videotaping all the passing trains. They have some strange hobbies in this country. Finding our way home by dead-reckoning in the deepening darkness, it felt like the close of a day. In truth... it was only the beginning, as we needed to make preparations for a Risk and dinner party for the evening. I need to get this blog entry in by 11:59, though, so I can't tell you how it ends.

Networks of the Mind

Today's topic is something I thought of as I was just leaving work today. Recently I've been listening to two audiobooks as I bike to and from work. The first is "Linked: How Everything is Connected to Everything Else", by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. It's about recent (1998-2001) discoveries in network topology, but written for the layperson. He talks about the difference between random networks and so-called "scale-free" structured networks centering around interconnected hubs, and he describes examples of these networks that can be seen in such wide-ranging systems as social and professional networks, protein interactions within a biological cell, food webs in an ecosystem, national power grids, business affiliations, marketing strategies, terrorist cells, and of course the internet and world wide web.

One key concept he presents involves the way networks form: while nodes in a randomly-linked system have an average of <1 connection with other nodes, the network is broken-up and disorganized. Once the critical threshold of 1 connection per node is exceeded, the system suddenly "gels" into a coherent network. (This is one connection on average, of course - many nodes will have no connections and a few will have many connections.) This behavior can be seen in ice crystals forming, for example. While the system is a liquid, the molecules are not coherently connected, but once a critical threshold is exceeded, the water crystallizes into ice.

The other book is "Memory Optimizer", by Vera Birkenbihl and Paul Scheele. It describes some techniques for improving memory... I haven't gotten too far into it, but they seem to be stressing the idea that memory is an active process, and that the formation of new memories is a process of constructing them based on existing connections. They talk about creating a "memory web", and continually expanding your potential connections by spending a little bit of time each week learning new things and reviewing connections you've made in the past.

Although I haven't read a formal study on this, it seems likely to me that creating a highly effective memory web involves building up a network of memories, concepts, and images. Once the interconnectivity in that network exceeds some sort of critical threshold, the connections your mind makes will suddenly bring very distantly-related and hard-to-reach ideas and memories close to each other, at which point your memory and creative facilities should dramatically increase in efficiency. That seems to be the gist of what the Memory Optimizer book is driving at with the memory web technique, and it seems to be consistent with the self-organization of real networks described in the other book.

The first thought I had today regarding networks was actually in regard to my performance at work. I've been thinking a lot about this lately - I work in sort of an in-between capacity at my company. On the one hand I'm in a support position, developing software to help the researchers with their experiments. On the other hand, I'm a little bit above the interns, and I think I'm expected also to do my own, original research. So far I haven't published anything, although I'll hear back about my first submitted paper at the end of next month. I feel like I have the potential to do lots of interesting research and write many papers, but something is holding me back.

Reflecting on what that might be, I've concluded that I feel like my background in the academic knowledge pertaining to the field of robotics isn't quite deep enough to make bold statements with confidence, and at the same time I feel like my knowledge of the workings and procedures within my company is slightly below the level where I'd feel confident rushing out and coordinating a major experiment. Finally, my experience doing pure research is somewhat limited, and my intuitions about what is necessary and useful to do to achieve publishable results have not been fully developed.

All this will come in time, of course. It's a natural part of the learning curve of any job. But what occurred to me is that this is a network as well. All of these bits of knowledge and knowhow are related, and when enough nodes and connections have been pulled together, the result is the intuitive ability to do something well. I think this is probably the case with any learned skill, but with complex job-related skills reaching into the social and scientific spheres, a particularly large number of connections need to be pulled together. Once this internal mental network is established, ideas can become reality just as smoothly as an email can travel around the world to its destination.

My other thought was that the complexity of networks is obvious in software design as well. If one considers function calls and dependencies on variables as links in a network, even a small piece of software can quickly exceed a critical threshold of intraconnectivity. At this point, the complexity of the system exceeds our mental ability to understand and control it, and the system has topologically transformed into a highly-interconnected configuration known as "spaghetti code". Managing this complexity is a primary function of the disciplines of abstraction and modular design. I had never thought of it as a network before, though.

So I found it interesting to consider that these seemingly unrelated concepts are all connected, not by actual networks, but by the concept of networks. And that's my thought for the day. :)

NaBloPoMo

Haha... Had to submit this one fast to make it in before midnight!
I figure if I get SOMETHING in before midnight then it counts, right? Then I can always add a little bit of content just afterwards. :D

So here's the deal. It's called NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. The crazy idea is to encourage people to write more by mandating that participants post on their blogs every single day during the month of November! I see it kind of like going jogging with a group of friends to help motivate each other.

Since I've been slacking a lot on my blog for the past several months, I think this is exactly what I need to kickstart my writing and motivate me to post about all the things I've been meaning to get around to. I'm not sure whether this will make things more interesting for my readers (lots and lots of new content to read) or worse (overwhelming amount of new content flooding in at a pace that's way too fast to keep up with), but I figure a month is a reasonable duration to try doing something like this for. Maybe my blog will even start to become the kind of thing that people besides my immediate friends might be interested in. Or maybe my writing style will improve and I'll start to learn that prepositions are inappropriate to end sentences with.

As for today, I had kind of a rough day. I wasn't making much progress at work, programs I was trying to install were crashing, plans for the weekend were falling apart, and all the effort I had put into memorizing kanji for my Japanese homework seemed to be for naught. On top of that there was some sort of press photo shoot or something in my lab, and every 2-4 seconds there was a bright flash behind me, as if to mock any attempt I made at focusing on the code I was trying to write.

I decided it was time, then, to do something I've been meaning to do for weeks. Get a haircut. I went off to the usual place I've been going to over at the new shopping mall, and went through the usual small talk with every member of the staff as they got me ready and shampooed my hair in the Machine.

"What country are you from?"
"I'm from America."

"Where in America?"
"New York"

"Oh, that's so cool."
"Well, not really... I'm from the countryside"

"Heeeee, they have countryside in New York?"
"Yes"

"So where do you live now?"
"Kyoto"

"Oh, that's wonderful"
"Well, not really... I live in the countryside"

"Heeeee..."

And so on. Eventually we got to the part where they ask me what kind of haircut I want, uselessly proffering me a few Japanese fashion magazines sporting pictures of invariably straight-haired models. This is the part I always have a problem with, even with English-speaking barbers. I don't speak their language.

"Very short on the sides, and a little longer, but still somewhat short, on the top," was the best I could come up with.

"Ok, so short on the sides and long on the top"

"Well, no... still make the top shorter than it is now, but not as short as the sides. I'd like the sides shorter, so it looks a little more tall and a little less round."

"Ok, so all short."

"Umm... Kind of, but longer on the top than the sides"

"Ok, long on the top. I understand."

Yeah, right...

He proceeds to cut and cut and cut... Showing me his handiwork at the end reveals that he almost didn't cut the top at all.

So I asked him to cut the top "a little bit shorter"... and he proceeded to attack the sides, making it look round rather than tall, and then he hacked off all of the hair in the front, leaving a huge tuft in the middle. Afterwards he explained that his rationale with that was that "the front might curl."

So here's the wonderful result of my $30 haircut today:


So... on the positive side, at least it's, um... a little shorter. Not sure if I want to keep going back to this place though. My first two cuts there were pretty good, but ... ouch.

Anyway, every day for the next month yoroshiku!!

Birthday Party!!

So, I promised Linda I'd post on my blog tonight, although I'd much rather be sleeping right now... After a night on the town (well, inasmuch as Nara can be called "the town") I came home and spent about 3 hours adjusting the dérailleurs on my bike. The shifting has gotten horrifically out of whack lately, and I figure hey, if I can program a robot, I can fix a bike.

Much to my dismay, I found some similarities in the two tasks... tuning a dérailleur, especially on a crappy bike like mine, is like tuning a control loop or particle filter - you have a whole bunch of coefficients, setscrews, or other variables that you can control, and although there are general guidelines on how you can more or less get the performance you want, the last step always seems to be "and if it's not right, tweak it until it is."

There were moments when I thought I pretty much had it, but ... no. Too many variables. In the end, I got it more or less working, although the rear sprocket's shifting performance seems to be too dependent on which ring on the front chainwheel the chain is riding on. But good enough. :P

So, here are some pics from my birthday party last weekend:



First, I had a pleasant surprise at work - Three of my coworkers got me a cake! You can almost make out the cute little blue robot on it, which unfortunately appears to have been thrown out with the candles. :(

The funny thing was, they came in to give me the cake just at the beginning of our lunch break, and then we're all like ... um ... we should have lunch first. So I blew out the candles and we put the cake back in the fridge for later. :P



Next, we went out for a gourmet lunch at "Joyfull", the woefully understaffed restaurant next to our company. We were all positioned for a picture, I had the camera fired up and ready for the push of a button, and we asked the waitress to take our picture. She looked at me quizzically, hesitated in deep thought for about 20 seconds, and then was like, "No. Too busy." That was a first for me in Japan...

Thus we had to put my camera on the next table over and do a timer shot, with the result that you can't see what we're eating. But it's not about the food - it's about the company. And the iced cappuccinos at the drink bar. :D



And of course we had to have my second annual takoyaki birthday party! I even pulled out the Hanshin Tigers jersey that the CJP's gave me last year. It was a pretty good party, but as usual we made too much takoyaki batter and got too much octopus. The next day I finished off the octopus in a funky omelet-like creation.

Somehow Anton managed a smile here, even though his body was battered and broken from carrying a mikoshi that morning. I think the mikoshi-carrying industry is secretly funded by the chiropractors' guild.



I like this picture, although I think that's the same takoyaki ball that I'm trying to eat in the previous shot. :P



Hehe, gotta love the fact that they let you drink in public here. We all piled into the last train to Namba to go to a club for the rest of the night. Yuki made sure she didn't go empty-handed. :)



But of course we all had to help her.



Watch out Osaka, here we come!

Most Awesome Birthday Present!!

Okay, so I just posted a few hours ago, but... THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!

My parents rock.



Hehe, now I can do at home ... the same thing I do at work. :P

Happy Birthday to me!!

Hey. Um, yeah... I haven't posted in a while, by which evidence you can correctly assume that I've been busy. Had a serious bout of farewell parties this past two weeks, which was fairly exhausting. Last Thursday I was out with an interesting group, including a guy named "Freek" (ok, so it's really "Freerk", but you try to get a Japanese person to say that!), a white dude named "Zen", and a girl named "Eleven". I crack up just thinking about that. Eleven!?!

Been singing too. Had a good show in Umeda a couple weekends ago, and I was supposed to sing this past Sunday in kitasenri, when a surprise fever hit me just hours before we were supposed to go sing! So I had to duck out. Fortunately it wasn't a big show - just some open mic event, so they recruited some people to take my place. The show was a success and I got to sleep for an entire day, so all was well.

Anyway, as of one hour ago, it's my birthday!!! :)
I'm allegedly having a party on Saturday, but given that I'm burnt-out at work, overwhelmed with life, and still not quite over my cold from last weekend, it's going to take a lot of energy to get into my best party mood.

However, birthdays inevitably come, and parties must inevitably be had. So it is written. So it shall be done.

Here are some pics for ya.


Rockin' out at the police station. Yes, we actually sang in the basement of a police station. Probably a good thing, as it was standing-room-only and the popularity of Urara6 tends to incite riots. Thanks to Philo for the pic!


Auf Wiedersehen to An-chan... we both look weird in this picture, haha. Took this shot a few hours before he flew back to Germany with his lovely lady.


Sayonara to Shizu... this was the least incriminating photo I could dig up. ;) All I can say is, watch out France!


er... I would try to come up with a third multilingual alliterative farewell for Freerk, but (1) I don't know any Dutch, and (2) I appear to have an egg in my mouth.

Ok, time for some sleep. Don't anybody tell Matsubara-sensei I did this instead of homework for her class!

A Sad Farewell

A good friend of ours passed away this weekend. Yuki gave him the nickname "Okinawa-kun" when we met him at a club back in March, and since then he's been a part of our lives... He came to all my parties, and we went camping together twice. We went together to watch my friend's band play a few times, too. Sure, I'd only known him for seven months, but considering the turnover rate of people I know these days, that's pretty good.

Anyway, I got the mail this morning. I couldn't believe it. He was surfing over the weekend in Okinawa, and he was suddenly thrown off his board, lost consciousness, and drowned. Absolutely unexpected. I think that the suddenness of it makes it particularly hard to internalize the fact that he's gone.



He was a wonderful guy. Always together, always kind, always thinking of other people. He was a crazy athlete... he crashed at my place a couple times and I always found him doing crunches or yoga or something when I woke up in the morning. He loved Okinawa, too. He brought his snakeskin shamisen to a few parties and sang the old folksongs of his homeland with pride. And he was a great cook. He made some sort of so-men dish for our hanami. Damn that was good. I don't think I'll ever forget that so-men. I should try to find a recipe.



Needless to say, today wasn't the most productive day at work. I found out this morning, and I spent half the day emailing people to let everyone know. So, so sad... I was sitting there crying at my computer, my thoughts everywhere but on the human-tracking program I'm working on for my robot... fortunately I don't have a pressing deadline at the moment.

Interesting thing, though... he had just finished moving to Tokyo. His company moved him there, and he really didn't seem happy about leaving. So we had a number of goodbye parties for him, and we all got to say our farewells. I imagine it's not so often that you get to say goodbye a friend before they die in an accident. Although it makes the situation no less tragic, in retrospect it is in some small way satisfying to have been able to say goodbye to him.




So I've been pretty philosophical all day, thinking about life... its transitory nature, the importance of valuing your friends while you have them, all the stuff you would probably expect. Also thinking about short-term friendships. Working where I do, I have an unusual proportion of friends whom I have known for less than a year, but yet these people are my closest friends now, and it's hard to reconcile that with growing up in the sticks with the same group of people around me for 17 years... I guess I'm worried that I may take friendships here too lightly, but I've come to the conclusion that really, this is just the way real life is.

I know that's not so coherent. I already wrote it in Japanese on my other blog, so I'm just sort of summarizing it here. And no, the Japanese wasn't any more coherent. :P

Anyway, one last thought, because I need some sleep. Okinawa-kun gave me some photos as a farewell present when he left. So I scanned them in, because I guess they represent some of his memories of us.



Not sure where this one was taken... Savannah?



Nara park, at our flowerless hanami.



Group photo after a party at my apartment.

So, philosophically speaking, which should be more important to me? The photos I took of him, or the photos he took of me? I don't know if there's an answer, but it certainly stirs some interesting thoughts.

And here's one last picture of Okinawa-kun from hanabi this summer:



Many tears were shed throughout Kansai today. We won't forget you, Okinawa-kun.

[Edit: For reference, here's a link to the article (in Japanese) about his accident on MSN Japan]