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【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.
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【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.
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  • 3 min read

【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."
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【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/

【No. 0057】Interesting Programmer's English

Feb 13, 2015 22:11
Today, I learned some English phrases used by programmers, and I think they were interesting. So I'd like to introduce some of them.

"I'm teenager in hex." or "I'm 20's in hex."
10 to 1F in hex means 16 to 31 in decimal, and 20 to 2F in hex means 32 to 47 in decimal. So I can say "I'm teenager in hex," hehe. If you say your age in hex, it's possible to pretend as if you're young.

"I took a core dump."
This means I drank too much or I puked. Core dump is an original memory file and it is spat up when a fatal error occurs. Anyway, this phrase This phrase represent like I'm really out of shape.

"She is Haskell."
This means she is really pure, but it's difficult to approach.

"He created a Lisp implementation in PostScript."
This means he is a freak.

【No. 0056】One of the most difficult English phrases for Japanese is ...

Feb 12, 2015 23:26
　I heard that one of the most difficult English phrases for Japanese to understand is "one of the most adjective + plural." I think this is true because I also confused this phrase. We learn that "the most" means "もっとも(mottomo)," and that the intended thing by "mottomo" should be only one. That is, "mottomo" is including the meaning of "only one." However, the words "one of + 'plural'" is attached to "the most." In view of Japanese, this is inconsistent because "one of" intends multiple things while "the most" intends only one thing. For example, when we read the sentence like "One of the highest mountains is...", we might wonder the highest mountain is not only one. Therefore, we learn something like "the most" intends things which belong to a superior group in this case. I was already accustomed to the phrase, but some Japanese are not persuaded because the Japanese words corresponding to "one of the most" is unnatural.

　Also, I heard a professor in a US university said that we should use "one of the more" instead of "one of the most." I don't know whether this point is correct or not, but I think it's interesting.
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【No. 0055】Kneel on a Cushion

Feb 11, 2015 23:11
Today, we held the sixth anniversary of my grandfather's death (and sixteenth anniversary of my grandmother's death).

Many relatives came to my home, and we chanted a Buddhist sutra.

While we are chanting a Buddhist chant, we usually kneel on our knees on a cushion.

However, I have a little bit of trouble with this posture, and as expected, my legs go to sleep.

I couldn't stand up for a while, but anyway, this event passed in peace.

Meanwhile, actually my mother is a Christian while my father is a Buddhist.

So sometimes I have no idea who I am.
  • in Essay
  • 1 min read

【No. 0054】Today, I went back to my hometown for the sixth anniversary of my g...

Feb 10, 2015 21:21
Today, I went back to my hometown for the sixth anniversary of my grandfather's death.

In Buddism beliefs, people hold a memorial service for a decedent.

This observance is called houzi（法事）, and it is held 7th day, 49th day, 1st year, 2nd year, 6th year after the person's death.

Houzi will held tomorrow, and many relatives will come my home.

I have to prompt my study, but I'm tired because I drove 5 hours today.

I'll soon bed down.
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【No. 0053】Ergonomic Keyboard

Feb 9, 2015 22:23
I bought a ergonomic keyboard designed by Microsoft because Amazon had had a time sale. The keys of this keyboard is divided into right and left, and the center is swelling. This curved keyboard layout is based on ergonomics in order to let us rest our hand and wrist, and let us reach keys easily. However, it is difficult for me to type letters using this keyboard for now. That is because I usually type B by my right hand while B key is left side on this keyboard. As a result of measuring my typing using this keyboard, mistyped rate increased 30% and typing speed decreased 40%. I need many practice to master it.
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【No. 0052】Today, my boss and I checked master thesis presentations of my two ...

Feb 8, 2015 22:58
　Today, my boss and I checked master thesis presentations of my two juniors. Each presentation was 15 minutes, however, our comments and discussion took around 3 hours. Although we all got exhausted, my juniors had to make a thorough review of the points put forth by us after that. I want them to be rewarded eventually because they have been working hard.
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【No. 0051】Review My Posts

Feb 7, 2015 23:51
　Today, I tried to reviewing my posts because I sometimes make a same mistake. However, lang-8 is opens slowly, so I can't review comfortably. Therefore, I created the following web page.

http://kano.arkoak.com/lang-8/

In this page, my previous posts are published. By using this page, I can easily review my mistakes. Furthermore, I'd like to investigate a trend of my mistakes someday. I think I have made a lot of boo-boo relevant to articles.
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【No. 0050】Valedictory Lecture

Feb 6, 2015 23:12
　Today, I went to a valedictory lecture of my boss' boss. The boss, who is a professor of my university, finally reached the retirement age of 65. In the past few years, I had attended classes of the professor several times. When I realized that this is the really last lecture of him, I felt real grief.

　The lecture was about the professor's researches and history. He told us his researches as if he were children. It was very impressive. He also said something like "It's doubtful that I am adult." Perhaps he's right, because he looked very young while he was talking.

　During the lecture, he gave us an advice for developing our originality as machinery researchers. He referred to the way as 4H; Horizontal, Hard, Humor, Humanity. That is, we need horizontal thinking that is not biased, opportunity to touch hard stuff, humor for enjoying our research, humanity to pursue happiness.

　At the end of the lecture, he introduced a poem "A Psalm of Life" written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He said he especially was impressed the following passage;

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

His lecture brought a lump to my throat. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to him.
  • in Essay
  • 7 min read

【No. 0049】An Uncommon Culture of a Specific Area of Kyoto

Feb 5, 2015 23:48
　Today, I'd like to introduce an uncommon culture of Kyoto which is the famous city in Japan. I have some friend in Kyoto, and this is a culture that I heard from them. Note that this culture go for a specific area of Kyoto.

　In that area, people never criticize and make a derogatory remark on the surface. Also, people don't praise others very much. Their wording is really beautiful and elegant. However, they need to understand the implication of their words each other, and it's difficult for people who live in another area. Especially, we have to be careful when they praised others too much or they look like so kindly.

　For example, if they say "You're good at playing the piano. I can sometimes hear your good playing at my home," or "You have so vigorous children," the true meaning of it is something like "It's so noisy. Please be quiet." Also, if they say "May I order some meal for lunch?," it means "I want you to go back to your home soon." Of course, it's not necessarily that this rule is true. Hmm, it's a complex culture.
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【No. 0048】Interesting English Sites

Feb 4, 2015 23:09
Today, I found some interesting English sites, for example, The Oatmeal, FML, Engrish.com, and so on.

The Oatmeal is a comic website created by Matthew Inman. All comics on this site were drawn by him, and a huge variety of comics are published. These comics look like really interesting, but unfortunately, I couldn't understand almost all these comic jokes without dictionaries. I think If I can read these comics smoothly, they will become more interesting.
http://theoatmeal.com/

On the other hand, I could understand some jokes of FML without dictionaries. Every day, many people post interesting events that happened to them as their diary on FML. Almost all posts are really short and simple.
http://www.fmylife.com/

I think I can take a breathing spell and learn English by reading these sites' jokes. I will sometimes try to read these jokes for my relief and studying.
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【No. 0047】Job-hunting in Japan

Feb 3, 2015 22:21
　In Japan, almost of all companies usually hire new staff in April. If we miss the timing, it will be really hard to find a job. Therefore, we usually start job-hunting in the winter of our junior year, and we almost look for a job during nearly 6 months. One of the reason why the job-hunting take such a long time is that Japanese companies like to conduct employment exams. Actually, some companies conduct the exams more than 7 times. I think this is useless custom indeed. We should use our time to our study instead of job-hunting.
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【No. 0046】TOEIC Test Result

Feb 2, 2015 22:45
Today I received the TOEIC test result.

I have to acquire at least 730 point to satisfy graduation requirements, but the result was 680 points.

Hehehe..hehe..woe is me.

My graduation is in next year March.

Until then, I'll keep trying to achieve norm anyway.
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【No. 0045】Graduation Thesis

Feb 1, 2015 23:05
　In Japan, the graduation season is approaching. As is often the case, graduate research presentations are held in Mid-February, the deadline for graduation thesis is February as well.
　Today, I read and corrected my junior's master theses carefully almost all day. It stands to reason that every sentence he wrote is perfect, but the connections of sentences were sometimes unnatural. Also, his story was sometimes logically incoherent. I was patiently looking for his mistakes and wrote correction comments. I was a little tired, but I'm happy to feel my junior's growth.
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【No. 0044】Pascal's Triangle

Jan 31, 2015 23:32
　I often solve some problems in the intervals between my study. Today, I chose a problem with Pascal's triangle from Project Euler. Pascal's triangle is a triangle that is created by the simple rules, such as following:

1
1 1
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1

　And the problem demanded the number of entries which are not divisible by 7 in the first one billion rows of Pascal's triangle. The number of elements that I have to check is about 500 quadrillion (5 times 10 to the 17th power).

　I wrote a simple program code which calculates Pascal's triangle made of residue of 7 (modularized by 7?). However, this program took about 30 seconds to check 5 billion elements in my computer. This means it will take 95 years to solve this problem. I think there is a smart analytical solution because there are too many elements to solve using dynamic programming. I couldn't solve this problem today, but I like such a problem that remind me of the splendor of algorithms.
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【No. 0043】Fried Rice

Jan 30, 2015 23:31
Since I became hungry, I opened the refrigerator in my laboratory.

There were only some eggs and some condiments.

Also, I cooked rice this morning and it was still left.

Then I decided to make a fried rice though there were no meat and vegetables.

I love fried rice and I often make it because it's delicious and easy to make.

After a while, a rustic fried rice was completed.

It not have much of a taste, but I like it.

Mogumogu... I have enjoyed the meal.

Also, when I make a fried rice, I remember the following song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7A85wzU0o

　 ∧,,∧
　(；`・ω・）　　｡･ﾟ･⌒） チャーハン作るよ！！
　/　　 ｏ━ヽニニフ))
　しー-Ｊ


　　　　　　　　アッ！　｡･ﾟ･
　 ∧,,∧ て　　　　　｡･ﾟ･｡･ﾟ･
　(； ´ﾟωﾟ）て　　　／／
　/　　 ｏ━ヽニニフ
　しー-Ｊ　　 　彡


　　　　∧,,∧　　　　ｼｮﾎﾞｰﾝ
　　　（ ´・ω・）
　　c(,＿Ｕ_Ｕ　　　　　　･ﾟ･｡･ ﾟ･｡･ﾟ･ ｡･ﾟ･
　　　　　━ヽニニフ