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2003 documentary on what can only be called a truly unique approach to middle school education in Kanazawa[1], Japan.
Thank you to Lisa Katayama for the links.
Becky Stern provided a reference implementation of this cool idea, but I later found out that she didn’t have a convenient way to generate the patterns “on the fly” so to speak. I’ve written a python program to do this – it uses data scraped from NIST Standard Reference Database #78 (although I’m still not entirely sure I parsed everything correctly and I don’t know much about spectroscopy).
I’ve made a design decision to not directly represent relative intensity because modeling it accurately would require even more shades of wool. Instead, I find the row of stitching with the highest total converged intensity and then use this as a basis for comparison ( “x” ). If a row intensity is at least 50% x, the next row is also lit up, and if it is at least 85% x another one again (for a total of three rows lit). So the brightest lines should be “fat” on the final product.
Here is an example – the following parameters are all configurable.
Oxygen, 3900 ångström to 7500 ångström, 200cm long, 0.5cm per row stitching, 2.5cm black head and tail:
10 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 30 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 13 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 103 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 11 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 55 row(s) of █████ 2 row(s) of █████ 2 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 5 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 6 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 4 row(s) of █████ 3 row(s) of █████ 8 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 11 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 7 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 16 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 4 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 37 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 15 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 10 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 23 row(s) of █████ 1 row(s) of █████ 7 row(s) of █████
[1]
The program at the moment dumps patterns as plaintext, html and PPM images. Web interface later this week, fingers crossed.
bash-3.2$ python scarves.py
21 rows of █
1 rows of █
29 rows of █
1 rows of █
66 rows of █
2 rows of █
216 rows of █
3 rows of █
61 rows of █
I saw “Avatar” last night at the GSA screening with some of my peoples from the law school (thank you all so much for inviting me – it was fun!) It was projected out of a truck onto a big canvas screen with bugs flying in front of it in the middle of a lawn. James Cameron would’a had an aneurysm.
Something that stood out for me was a big hanging plot thread that had the potential to become a major third act twist. But it never developed that way! So I am going to put it down here so that if it turns out to be the plot of “Avatar II” I can point to this blog post and screech “I called it!” disgracefully.
The rest of this has spoilers, so I will put it behind a cut. I am not sure if RSS respects this so RSS readers: sorry!
(More …)
I found this quite moving. This guy will likely get discarded on the next wash of the internet news cycle, but he’s got a story behind him and I, at least, will remember it.
But you made it too implausible! No fish could be this reckless!
me: what have you got?
heliotic: 4J of hearts
heliotic: there’s 89T4 on the table
…
heliotic: haha
heliotic: BILL FILLMAFF
…
heliotic: but there was a ten
heliotic: so now I have two pair
heliotic: and a J
heliotic: except everyone else has at least one pair :argh:
…
heliotic: Ironically I won with that
me: …
…
me: what was played against you?
heliotic: for ruling out all the shitty lower possibilitiesheliotic: two pair tens and deuces +9
me: oh my god
One of the reasons that script translation on Natsuko no Sake has been so slow is that it uses a lot of specialised agricultural vocabulary. It’s not that these are intrinsically more difficult to find in the dictionary than any other word I don’t know, but I have come to understand that my strategies for looking up unknown words are fundamentally flawed.
For the longest time I was an advocate of Jack Halpern’s SKIP system for this purpose. SKIP involves dividing up Kanji into a handful (three main and one residual) forms and then counting the strokes in the blocks that make them up. It is an excellent system and the product of considerable research and thinking on how people can recognise these shapes. But I have two problems with it.
One, it can be very hard to count the strokes on a scanned piece of writing as opposed to a crisply printed book. Here is a raw scan from Natsuko:
Yasuo’s first line of dialogue uses the word 農家[1]. It is clear enough on the screen, but I had a very hard time counting the lines on the scan, even zoomed in. For those playing along at home, the SKIP code is 2-6-7. The second problem is, there are often a great many matches for a given SKIP ( as you can see here ). But often I can clearly discern, for example, the left hand side of the Kanji. A lot of these matches can be eliminated entirely.
For a long time I contemplated writing something that would let users drag fragments of Kanji onto a grid, which would then search the database for matching items… but to be honest, it’s already been done, and is in fact how the Japanese and Chinese do it themselves – using something called “radicals”[2]. You can read a surprisingly clear introduction to the concept and the 214 radicals at about.com.
Something that particularly interests me about the radicals is that they offer a chance to unlock semantic meaning in the same way that the study of etymology does for English speakers[3]. Of course, just like in English, this can be misleading, but it’s a start.
Anyway, I have decided I am going to attempt to learn all 214 radicals as my Japanese project for a while. As I’ve kind of stagnated on vocabulary, I think this is an excellent idea!
I have hauled a bunch of old blog posts from 2008 out of the ashcan (thanks to a backup sql file I found in a long forgotten folder). I think they came across alright, but some of them have some funny linebreak issues that might also mess up hyperlinks. If you see something – say something (in the comments box!)
I need to have a break from reading this brief, so here is a little something that’s been kicking around my head for a bit.
At a dharma talk recently the instructor read a story from Reb Anderson’s book “Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts“. The story relates to an experience that Anderson had while studying under Shunryu Suzuki, and I will reproduce it here (I hope that he doesn’t mind):
Zen is, in a nutshell, being on time. Not being early and not being late is Zen. [...]
Once I asked Suzuki Roshi, “What is right effort?” He said, “To get up with no hesitation when your alarm clock rings.” On a later occasion, during one of our week-long meditation retreats, the early wake-up bell was rung at 3:30 A.M. instead of the usual time of 4:30 A.M.
People came out of their rooms and informed the bell ringer that he was an hour early, so he stopped ringing the bell and proceeded to walk up and down the halls of the temple telling people that they could go back to bed. My room was next to my teacher’s. As I came out of my door, I saw him already dressed in his robes, walking to the meditation hall. Following the bell ringer’s instruction, I went back to bed and rose again at the second ringing of the bell.
When we were all sitting in the meditation hall, Suzuki Roshi said, “The bell was rung this morning. When I heard it, I came down to sit. But when I arrived, none of you were here. I sat for a while but no one came.” Then he yelled, “What do you think we are doing here?!” Then this old Zen master got down from his seat, came over to my seat, the one closest to his, and hit me with his teacher’s staff in the traditional way on the shoulder with all his strength. He grunted as he hit me. Then he proceeded to hit each student, more than one hundred of us. By the time he finished, he seemed tired. He was hitting lightly and no longer grunting as he hit. I think that we all felt how deep his love was. He gave his all to show us that, for a student of Zen, there is no higher teaching than the precept: At the sound of the bell, put on your robe and go to the meditation hall, with no hesitation.
When the story finished, everybody laughed. But I didn’t think it was funny. When I tried to explain why to the instructor after the talk had finished, she thought I was concerned that the students were being hit. After I explained, she said I should discuss it at our next meeting, but unfortunately some foot surgery and a take-home exam kept me away from the zendo that weekend[1] .
My objection is a bit more complicated than “some students got hit”. Obviously I am not qualified to comment on the Buddhist-philosophical underpinnings of Suzuki’s practice, but speaking just as a human, I present the following observations.
This is really a story in two parts. The second part is where Suzuki, mind made up to discipline his students with his stick (the kyôsaku?) continued to lay into them even after his arms and body tired. If you are willing to accept that such discipline was desirable, his dedication and desire to treat all his students equally is laudable. But is such discipline desirable, appropriate or acceptable?
As to this first part, it seems some information is missing. I will assume at least some of the monks were intercepted by the bell ringer robed and leaving their rooms – this might not be true if the bell ringer was entering peoples rooms, or if people were leaving their rooms under dressed – and if this is not true, then maybe the story stands on its own merits. But for those who heard the bell, robed and were then told to return to their rooms, it seems wrong to punish them for trusting the word of the bell ringer. Anderson, opening the chapter, warns us that being early is not Zen either. If we must reject the authority of the bell ringer, who tells us we are too early (and that our practice thereby misses the mark), why should we accept the authority of the Roshi who yells at us and beats us with the stick (or anyone else for that matter)? Maybe this is the point?
If you read this and think “This post is laughably ridiculous because of ______”, or “This guy has totally misunderstood Reb Anderson’s story because of ______” please post so in the comments. I would like to hear some more opinions on this.
Speaking as someone giving this guy the benefit of the doubt, perhaps what was meant was the importance of self-discipline. Getting up at 3:30 (or even 4:30) to go to a prayer hall doesn’t sound fun, but perhaps to Suzuki if it is not fun (or at least satisfying) then you’re doing it wrong. I.E. by going back to bed the students were demonstrating that attending prayer hall was a duty — one which they were keen to have a good excuse to delay.
Speaking as Nicholas, the whole story is ridiculous. The guy is a power-mad disciplinarian with a clock fetish. How can he infer the student’s state of mind just because they didn’t show up an hour early? Maybe some of them had actually wanted to go to prayer hall, but decided that it was more respectful to show up at the correct time. Maybe some of them wanted to go to prayer hall, but decided that they would be more mentally prepared if they had had a proper sleep. Instead they all got whacked because their teacher assumed the worst.
Wow, that guy was a dick! And for all the reasons both you and Nicholas put forward. I think that if anyone was to be punished, it should be the bell-ringer, for causing such a fuss. Though I wonder why the bell-ringer did not tell Suzuki? and if he did and saw that Suzuki was not going back to bed, why he didn’t go around and tell everyone they really should get up because Suzuki was going to the hall?
@liedra: Actually, a bystander at the discussion suggested that perhaps the bell ringer received an even more thorough thrashing (unacceptable for being an innocent mistake) or alternatively that Suzuki and the bell ringer had colluded to teach the students a lesson. I find this last idea to be the worst possible explanation of all, as it not only goes beyond encouraging students to distrust others in their community, but justifies their mistrust.
I would rather play sport than read about it in the paper. Remove it from the Age’s National/World RSS feeds with this handy pipe!
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=35508cf5fd57258404fec20b2adf0998
Nicholas 2:01 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink
Plz send source so I can apply a very important fix. :)
Bryn 10:32 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink
@Nicholas: I AM NOT ADDING SPECTRA LINES FOR UNOBTAINIUM