Month: January 2010

What happened today?

January 17, 2010
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Again a diary post here, as usual. Simply i don’t have time to write about all the other topics i have, though i have plenty, because i leave early in the morning and arrive home sometime really late. Like today, i left before nine and arrived home around one. Both am. I arrived at the Sendagaya station, actually the same one where we went skating, on time, well before ten. It was the second day of a japanese national table tennis championship (日本卓球選手権大会—actually i’ve seen these games, and thought that the second place should’ve won, her only problem was patience), and with the club we went to see it. It was really interesting, the games as well as the people around.

Some funny moments: there was a guy (apparently) with a cold behind us, and once he snorted such a huge one that he was choking for like five minutes. I really wished him quick death.

The other was after a poor kid threw up right in front of the Butterfly (pingpong brand) shop stand: the staff put some benches around the pool of vomit so that no one will step in it. Well, another poor kid obviously didn’t realise that, jumped over it to check the shop, right into the pool of vomit. And it was slippery, per se, so he landed full body-full face in the pool. Poor kid (it was really hard to keep myself from laughing out loud there).

Also, the players (i don’t know if it’s only japanese or general everywhere) were very loud. Sometimes after scoring a nice ball they were shouting as if they were being stripped of their genitals or something. Thus the imaging of people shouting all the time at the smallest of exercise in anime proved to be true.

There was a shop selling photos of the best games of the day as well. Well. Well. I’m not a photographer, whoever sees my flickr knows that. But the guys making the photos had really good machines, with very pro-looking lenses, yet the photos were terribly low quality. All looked as if they were shot like thirty (30) years ago with a polaroid camera. (Might’ve been the fault of the printer though.)

My evening wasn’t eventless either, but about what came after we left the sports hall with the club shall be the subject of the next post—coming tomorrow, since it’s almost half past two, and i have to wake up at six, because tomorrow (looking at the date, today) we will be playing in a tournament. Wish us good luck, thanks.

Oh, and long live the narwhal song. Looping it all the time i’m home (sorry, neighbours).

Kétezertíz január tizenöt

January 15, 2010
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Reggel fölkeltem. Megreggeliztem, a szokásos gaponapelyhet kevertem a szokásos müzlivel. Aztán suliban nekem kellett elmagyarázni egy bekezdésnyi szöveget, túléltem. Hallásértésen már majd’ elaludtam, félelmetesen unalmas volt. Ebédre olívaolajon sütöttem csirkét, babérral főleg, de volt bors meg végül frissnek rá olíva és oregano. Természetesen Big Bang Theory-t néztem hozzá, aztán matekon vektoroztunk. Olyan bájos ez a téli szakasz, ha belegondolok, akkor most a matek az lineáris algebra (vektorok+mátrixok) és statisztika. Az egyik (legalább) az IK-n gyilkolt, a másik meg (szintén legalább) a közgázon, úgyhogy jó referenciákkal érkeznek a tárgyak. A közgáz is nagyon fárasztó volt, kár, hogy Max nem volt, mert ő tud vitatkozni, ha hülyeséget mond a tanár – én csak tudom, hogy hülyeséget mond, de nem tudok érvelni (eleget), hogy miért. Márpedig mond hülyeséget eleget. Aztán csak hazajöttem, ettem egy tonna édességet (vajkeksz és Kitkat), és unatkoztam, nagyjából. Mivel utálok unatkozni, inkább körülnéztem, hátha találok valahol valakit, és végül a konyhában egy főzős bagázsba futottam bele, ahol aztán eltelt az este. Aludnék, holnap reggel elég korán kell kelnem, mert megyünk versenyt nézni (ezúttal csak nézni) a pingpongklubbal edzés előtt, bár vasárnap nekünk is lesz verseny (megint). Hétfőn meg, ha minden jól megy, Sonata Arctica koncert.

Due diary entry for today

January 15, 2010
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I woke up terribly late. Actually, i somehow woke up before my phone went out, about two minutes early—then i just stopped it, and went back to bed, as usual. But usually i have the snooze, and three other alarms set at twenty minute intervals so that i would surely have to wake up. Not today. It was just by miracle that at eight-forty i woke up and i realised something was wrong. Quickly set the cooker to get the rice ready for lunch and rushed to the first class where we “learnt” about collecting resources for our reports and presentations. (Note here, i really have to figure out a topic for economy.)

Then the normal class, where my topics got both approved, at least the teacher couldn’t really say a word when i announced that i want to talk about either my own ontology, or artificial intelligence from neural networks. I know it’s not easy topic, but i don’t care. I’m going to do one of them, and whichever it will be for class, you’ll be sure to read about both here once. I don’t know which would be more interesting for others, i’ll just ask around.

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Topics

January 14, 2010
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First, i have three topics for my report and presentation—though i have no idea what to write about for economy or politics. The presentation is definitely linguistics, about the origin of languages and how could totally unrelated languages have very similar words with similar meanings. For the report i have two, either artificial intelligence and neural networks, or philosophy, my own view on existence, in an ontological sense. Just have to choose one of them.

I realised that simply whatever i choose, it will end up a huge work to research, simply because if i want to do it well about a topic that i consider interesting, then it won’t be simple. Especially if (as in case of the linguistics stuff) i have to say it simple in the end. So i don’t care, will do all the work needed, will do it as good as i can (except if i get fed up, which i very much hope won’t happen).

A bit different topic, but it occurred to me while going to kombini for milk, that as humankind has the six degrees of separation, how many clicks could it take on Wikipedia to get from any article to any other. I really wonder.

Actually, one similar concept was invented by a mathematician with the same family name as mine, although not a relative, Paul Erdős. I think this is handy, as i can use the Erdős-number myself, with me being the center, number zero.

The male chauvinist

January 13, 2010
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It all started with a video a friend (who’s not online right now, and might mind having his/her name published) sent me, with Dick Masterson talking about his philosophy, and i find it really… intriguing that whenever i show it to a girl, the reaction is the same. One tried to tickle me to death. One started her comment with a “nice” vulgar sentence in all capitals. I’m not going to details. Still, it made me think.

When a guy stands up and preaches chauvinism, every woman, intelligent as well as brick stupid, get angry, shout, kill and so on. Now when a woman starts to preach feminism, like two highly attractive women in the Politically Incorrect talk show, intelligent guys at least say “yeah, you’re right”. (Then have a nice round in bed and prove the chauvinist theory that way. Joking here.) Of course there are guys who get angry, and smash in the face of that woman.

Actually, in the second part of the earlier linked Politially Incorrect video, some intelligent arguments can be found. Carl Jung’s anima and animus for example. Michael Moore has the point i wrote about above, of “just nod, just agree”.

If someone happened to ask my opinion, i don’t care. I don’t care about being better in this stereotypical way, i don’t place myself higher than others based on their sex (i do place people relative to myself based on my experience and opinions). It’s sure nice to hear a guy stand there and say all that stuff, simply because it sounds nice to the male inside. That doesn’t mean i think the same, it’s just pleasing. Just the way feminists’ fights are funny.

Polc

January 13, 2010
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A polcom. Leírás a folytatásban.

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Queen of the wild frontier

January 13, 2010
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In this week’s episode of the Series, here comes Kings of the Wild Frontier by ~pairofparentheses. I’m running out of comments. It’s a great pose, a nice girl, a good photo and beauty in focus.

First

January 13, 2010
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School’s not out, sorry Alice. It just started, and i’m not sure how to think about it. I surely didn’t get back to that fast enough gear for school, so it’s no surprise i’m a bit—and luckily, as for now really just a bit–behind myself (is that a huge giveaway that i always type “mysql” instead of “myself” first? yeah, this time too).

Today was fine. The presentation class is held by the center-chou (bad habit, it’s so easy to say it this way, much easier than to go around what’s her position’s exactly called, let’s say, the boss). Before i didn’t really like her… she just didn’t seem nice. But actually no worries, she’s all nice and shiny, though i’m sure she can get mean if someone goes “bad student”. But there was a lot of free time in class, i mean, it wasn’t actually free, we just weren’t doing anything worthy of mention, just going over the same stuff over and over again. I hope that’ll change later, this way i’ll have to bring something to read… (Twilight?)

The afternoon pol-eco class was about the COP15, global warming, climate change, the Climategate scandal and other related topics. It was quite interesting. Adina did a presentation about the topic first, after that talk-talk-laugh-talk. A bit too long.

Table tennis training was fun, i had a nice five o’clock white tea with home cookies and highland shortbread, but didn’t study any practically… I was instead reading papers that may relate to what i’m going to write about later this term. (Examples include one about gravity and information (pdf) and one on the ontology of non-Euclidean geometries. There are more.)

And midday for like half an hour, it was snowing. First time i see snow in Japan. It wasn’t enough to leave a mark, but still, it made me smile bright.

Starbucks Sumatra drip

January 11, 2010
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Yesterday while waiting on the (wrong) station, i sat in for a coffee, because why not, and i could sit down to read for a while comfortably. So at Starbucks 大船 (Oofuna), i got myself a mug of hot drip coffee (though i usually only drink espresso), made out of Sumatra blend. (Later the day i had another, that time from House blend, but i can’t write about that.) Actually i forgot what was its name so i had to look up the store and call them asking, which i could do, so i’m proud of myself right now. I don’t know what my next pack will be after Gold Coast, but i’m considering Sumatra as well. I must’ve looked strange, a big foreigner guy with dreadlocks, reading Twilight in japanese and taking notes about the coffee on the back of the receipt.

Sumatra was a really nice coffee to drink. It’s well roasted, as expected from an extra bold coffee. First, it has a taste like popcorns. I guess that’s the “buttery” they’re always talking about. Also a lemon-like sour taste, which makes a really nice contrast. It might’ve been just because of the drip, but felt really soft, and a bit of unexpected acidity. Every mouthful tasted somewhat different–i don’t know how that’s possible, but it really did, almost felt like some spell on it. It had the same or at least very similar aftertaste as the coffee my parents are drinking all the time. It had a very thick body, leaving a mark lasting for a surprisingly long time, but not unpleasant at all. Even though, again probably because of the drip, it felt somewhat thin. Nice choice it was for a day’s hot coffee for sure.

Starbucks Gold Coast blend

January 11, 2010
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Again a Starbucks coffee, and probably not the last. Note that i can hardly feel any smell because my nose is as dry as the nose of a dying cat, because the air in my room, although i’m humidifying it with boiling water, is as dry as i haven’t felt even in desert (been to one). I chose Gold Coast as “next one” when i bought Kenya.

Gold Coast’s steam has just the same smell as it’s main taste, strong and somewhat bitter. The dark roasting is very clear. If someone had to find something bad in it, that would be an interesting bit in the smell, which one could say is the same as the idea of children’s hated medicine.

Upon tasting it, it’s just as coffee-bitter as expected from the smell, and although its body leaves a nice feel, it’s not as thick as i would’ve thought. It doesn’t have any extreme flavours, it’s a really nice mix of coffees from all around the world, and tastes just like a coffee should. The taste itself is cold, and because of the dark roast somewhat burnt, which along with the official description mentioning Chicago, brings out the image of a burning oil barrel under a bridge. Although this sounds quite negative, the warmth of coffee and the thought that it’s all from around the equator makes it a coffee i’ll like to drink for the coming few weeks until it runs out.