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Diary

【No. 0083】Charity of Yahoo! Japan

Mar 11, 2015 18:12
 Yahoo! Japan is conducting a charity event that the company will donate 10 yen per every person who search for "3.11" on Yahoo! search today. The donation will be used for recovery of Tohoku region where was hit by a huge earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis. Yahoo! Japan conducted this charity event also last year, and the company had set an upper limit to 5 million yen corresponding to 50 thousand searchers. However, over 250 thousand people had searched for "3.11" in that day, and finally Yahoo! Japan ignored the upper limit, then over 25 million yen was donated. I didn't know this charity event last year, but I participated to it this year. I wonder how many people search for "3.11" on Yahoo! search today.

【No. 0082】Day for Discarding Bulky Trash

Mar 10, 2015 22:14
 Today was bulky trash day for our university. Actually, my boss and I describe this day as "treasure day" because we can pick up useful trash which was abandoned by other researchers. This time, I could obtain PC monitor, PC rack, many PC components, many kind of cables, and furniture. I think it's possible to assemble a PC by using only parts that I picked up. I also picked up two projectors, but they were completely broken. Incidentally, my boss picked up a printer that is almost new, and picked up a life-size dolls for research. Anyway, I had a lot of fun today. (As a matter of fact, about 20% of equipments in our laboratory are composed of trash that my boss and I picked up.)

【No. 0081】Makeover

Mar 9, 2015 18:22
 Today, I and my juniors rearranged our laboratory so that we can accept new faces. We printed out a sketch of our laboratory, and discussed new arrangement. We had had a lots of opinions, for example, "I want to move a desk out of the sun to prevent skin irritation," "I need more space," "I'd like to avoid a desk near the entrance," "I want to use two desks," and "I want to isolated."

Of course, It is not possible to reflect all these demands, but we tried to think that we are as fully satisfied as possible. About 3 hours later, rearrangement was completed. I thought we'd solved almost all of our problems, however -- some juniors expressed their dissatisfaction soon. Some said "Oops, I'm worried about other people's eyes," and some said "Jesus! my space is too narrow."

Haha, it was difficult. However, I think we have to put on our considering caps about our eyes. According to the Northern Europe research, if we are working without partitions, our productivity, motivation, and concentration would decrease, and chances of getting sick would increase. Although there is nothing surprising about this, most Japanese companies don't use partitions in their offices. In order to improve our productivity, we have to create our spaces that we can concentrate. In fact, since there are four PC displays on my desk and they are serving as a surrogate for partitions, I'm comfortable.

【No. 0080】Earned 2 yen

Mar 8, 2015 17:24
 About a year ago, I registered myself as a Android developer to sign up for the Play store. And few months ago, I registered my first app with the Play store. This app was a countermeasure tool for qualification tests that is related to information technology. The target of this app was very niche, however, I created this for myself. Also, since there are almost no advertisement on this app, it's really difficult to earn money. I today visited to the AdMob page which shows advertising revenue after a long interval. Then, I found that I had earned 2 yen by advertisements of my app. That's one small step for many people, one giant leap for me.

【No. 0079】Friend that one had been to school with

Mar 7, 2015 22:46
 Yesterday, I met my friend from university. He came my university as a recruiter of a company and introduced his company to students. And today, I ate lunch with him, then later we talked about various things each other. It was so fun to talk with a classmate after a long time. This is why almost all my classmates got into companies when we graduated our university, and there is no classmate in my research building. I sometimes feel lonely, however, I also sometime feel as if I were a boss of students since all students in my research building are younger than me. He-he.

【No. 0078】Create Post Archive

Mar 6, 2015 23:23
 Today, I created a web page that summarizes my previous posts. Actually, I had created a similar web page, but it was inconvenient because I used accordion representation. The accordion representation means that posts are folded and it would be open when we click the post title. This movement was rather cool, but I couldn't read my post unless I click it. I wanted to search corrected posts using some keywords, and to do this, there's a need all post are opened. So I created new one which is simple, light and open. Now I can search my posts effectively. Hehehe I'm so tired to create this. In the near future, I will re-create the css file and re-design this page.

http://kano.arkoak.com/lang8/

【No. 0077】Connective Words

Mar 5, 2015 20:52
 Today, I learned that there are a lot of "therefore" in sentences which Japanese wrote and it should not be in heavy usage. Also I learned that we must not use "therefore" with comma at the beginning of sentences. Hehehe, I have made great use of the word ever. Similarly, I think we use far too many connective words such as "so, however, as a result." If we write sentences using many connective words, the sentences would give us the illusion that it's logical despite non-logical. This is really dangerous. In some English-speaking school, students train to enhance their mental capacity and prevent a logical leap by limiting the use of "so." I also want to be able to write logical sentences heartily, so I'd like to be careful to avoid "so." Oops, it's very difficult.

【No. 0076】Foie Gras

Mar 4, 2015 20:46
 Today, I went to a ramen shop with my juniors. Surprisingly, foie gras bowl was sold at the ramen shop. The shop offers only 5 little foie gras bowls per day, and 4 bowls were already sold at that time. Therefore, I ordered the foie gras bowl and ate foie gras for the first time in forever. The name of the menu was "foie gras bowl," but in fact, there were only one small slice of foie gras and some slices of beef on a rice bowl. The foie gras is maybe very delicious, but it's difficult for me to describe the taste. I thought cheap meats are more suit me than expensive meats because I want to eat a lot of meat.

【No. 0074】Massive Power Outage

Mar 2, 2015 22:23
 Early in the morning, a massive power outage was occurred in my prefecture. This power outage cut electricity to about 380 thousand homes and stopped about 2700 traffic lights. Furthermore, 15 bullet trains stopped and this influenced about 6600 people. It was reported that the reason of the power outage was that transmission lines had been damaged, and it lasted from 5:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. However, actually I couldn't be aware of this power outage, because I woke up around 8:30 a.m. and I didn't use electricity for a while. I just noticed the power outage when I went to my university and watched my PC. Although I put my PC in sleep mode, it was shut down.

 Anyway, this accident was lucky it wasn't worse. I mean, despite the massive power outage, there were no large-scale traffic accidents or injuries.

【No. 0073】Relationship Between Rain and Headache

Mar 1, 2015 22:19
 Today, it was raining, later snowing, and I had a headache almost all day. When it rains, I usually get a headache. It is thought that one of the most important factors of migraine is the change of the weather. When the updraft occurs, the weather becomes bad, and the atmosphere pressure drops. By the atmosphere pressure is dropping sharply, the pressure that is holding the blood vessels in the brain also drops, then the blood vessels are more likely to spread. By the blood vessels in the brain is spread, the nerves surrounding the blood vessels will stimulated and as a result, migraine will be induced. This is one of the hypotheses, but according to my experience, it's true.

【No. 0072】Today, I cooked curry again and had a big mistake.

Feb 28, 2015 20:42
 Today, I cooked curry again and had a big mistake. In a typical recipe, we will simmer curry for about 20 minutes, but I simmered curry too much. I was going to watch Dr. House during simmering curry, resulting, I infatuated with the drama and forgot my cooking. Curry got burnt and my pot became charred. I barely could eat curry near on the top of the pot, but unfortunately, I left the other portion. Although I washed the pot by scraping strongly, I couldn't take off the burnt deposit which stacks to the bottom of the pot. I was really sad because the pot was my birthday present.

【No. 0071】Year-End Debriefing Session

Feb 27, 2015 20:21
 Today, the year-end debriefing session of various organizations in our university was held. Some people presented their research, and some people presented their venture activity. We also presented about our software development venture and our projects. It was the exciting event, and I learned a lot from many other organizations. After the debriefing session, we participated a banquet and ate delicious dinner.

【No. 0070】Birthday Party

Feb 26, 2015 23:35
 Today, a birthday party was held in our laboratory. We laboratory member are sometimes hold birthday parties when some members' birthdays are approaching. This time, we celebrated birthdays of two members. We cooked grilled beefs and ate them heartily. After we finished eating the meats, we brought a birthday cake and began to eat again. Then, we sent birthday presents to laboratory members whose birthday is approaching. Since one of them likes cherry blossom, we sent shampoo and rinse and lip balm which have good aroma of cherry to him. Also, since the other will graduate soon and begin a new life, we sent a valuable ballpoint pen to him. We had an ace time at the birthday party.

【No. 0069】Phrases of American Dramas

Feb 25, 2015 19:25
 When I was watching an American drama, I was noticed that I could understand some phrases or words without Japanese subtitles.

For example, "you're insane" and "creepy" in "The Big Bang Theory," "you're an idiot" and "you idiot" in "Dr. House," "damn it" and "put your hands on your head" in "24."

I might have a dirty mouse if I keep watching these dramas repeatedly.

However, it is interesting for me to know various characters' trademark phrases.

【No. 0067】Cook Hot Curry

Feb 23, 2015 22:56
 Yesterday, I cooked hot curry for my dinner. Since I used an expensive Japanese Black Wagyu, it became delicious. However, I cooked the curry too much (I made 6 servings), so today's my breakfast and lunch and dinner were also the curry. I think a few percent of now my body is composed of the curry. I'm worried whether my body is giving off a curry smell.

【No. 0062】Programming Day

Feb 18, 2015 21:55
Today, I have been programming and studied all day because the deadline of journal is approaching.

Now I'm getting my shirt in a knot.

However, I think when we are pressed for time, the best performance wouldn't be exerted.

To avoid such a situation, we have to do our best habitually.

Ahhh.

【No. 0061】Today, the graduation research poster presentation of bachelors was...

Feb 17, 2015 18:12
 Today, the graduation research poster presentation of bachelors was held. There were many interesting studies, and I was satisfied to hear various stories. Also, some studies were focused on SNS like twitter or line. Although these studies were still immature, it was very fascinating. I heard a foreign study result implies that trends of tweets and diseases are correlated. I mean, people who tweet negative words are prone to get diseases. That is to say, by analyzing big data like tweets in twitter, an early detection of diseases will might be possible.

【No. 0060】Origin of Symbols

Feb 16, 2015 23:43
 Today, I learned the origin of the symbol '$' called dollar or pesos. One of the most widely prevalent hypotheses is derived from pesos. That is, it is thought '$' is the combination of P and S from pesos. Also, in the 16th Century, 1 peso is equivalent to 8 Real. Therefore, it is also thought '$' is the combination of 8 and R from pesos. Furthermore, other hypotheses is shown as follows:

・ It was derived from HS of sestertius which is Roman currency.
・ It was derived from S which is Shilling currency symbol.
・ It was derived from US which represents unit of silver (or United States).
・ It was derived from the figure that ribbons are winding around Pillars of Hercules which is a symbol of Spain.

[Extra information (This is just my brief note)]
 It is thought that the symbol '@' called at-sign was derived from "ad" in Latin which means "at" in English. But many other hypotheses exist.
 The symbol '&' called ampersand was derived from "et" in Latin which means "and" in English. That is because "etc." (et cetra = and so forth) is sometimes abbreviated like "&c."

【No. 0059】Nabe Dishes

Feb 15, 2015 22:06
  Today, I cooked a nabe dishes. A nabe means a pot, and also means a Japanese cuisine similar to stew. This dish is really simple to cook, because all we have to do is putting various foods in a pot and boiling them. Today, I put Chinese cabbage, Welsh onion, bean curd, velvet shank, chicken and pork in an earthen pot and boiled them using a chicken based soup. It was really simple taste and delicious, also it made me warmed. Furthermore, it is good for health. In Japanese winter, we can't spend comfortably without nabe dishes.

【No. 0058】Puke Words

Feb 14, 2015 22:06
I searched an English phrase which means "ゲロを吐く (puke or vomit)," as a result, some phrases like as follows were founded:

"bark at ants"
"feed the fish"
"sing to the sink"
"woof one's cookies"

I didn't know why these phrases mean "puke," so I thought the reason.

"bark at ants"
Since ants are worming on the ground, the puking pose looks like barking at ants. Maybe that's why.

"feed the fish"
I thought this phrase liken vomited foods to fish food.

"sing to the sink"
A scene that a human is puking to the sink is as if who are singing to the sink. Maybe.

"woof one's cookies"
The word woof is similar to the word puke, but I didn't know why cookies. This phrase might liken vomited foods to cookies.

I'm so sorry for posting a dirty content.

Also, according to the following webpage, there were so many puke words. I gave up to think where all of these words come from.
http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/puke-words/