a-cubed.info

I commented in agreement with Matt McCormick’s post on The God Projector:
There is a very good book by Reeves and Nass called “The Media Equation” looking at the psychological responses of human beings to various media, including television and computers in particular. One of the telling elements which jibes quite well with the ideas presented here is solid evidence that our psychological reactions to computers automatically ascribe human emotional contexts to machines. One of a number of well-documented examples is the subconscious positive bias we make when filling out a survey about the qualities of a computer program. If we fill it out on the same physical computer on which we used the program, then we give higher scores than if we fill it out on a different (but otherwise identical) machine. So, given a lab with two identical Dell computers in them if we fill out the questionnaire on the one we used a program on then we give higher results for the program than sitting at an identical machine. The only mechanism that seems plausible for this conclusion is that we’re hardwired to avoid hurting the feelings of the computer we used. These results are consistent even among people with a high level of education about computers and a high level of intelligence. So, there are hard-wired subconscious elements of the human brain that attempt to ascribe human-like qualities to everything we interact with. Hence “don’t make the lightning mad” is perfectly reasonable as a first hard-wired reaction. (more…)

The Counter Terrorism Act 2008 includes the provision:

76. Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc

(1) After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (collection of information) insert:
“58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc

(1) A person commits an offence who:

(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been:

(i) a member of Her Majesty’s forces,

(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or

(iii) a constable,

which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or

(b) publishes or communicates any such information.”

This is in addition to a prior claim in December 2008 where the Home Secretary informed the National Union of Journalists that photography in public places may be restricted when it “may cause or lead to public order situations or inflame an already tense situation or raise security considerations”.
(more…)

The Today programme (BBC Radio 4’s morning news/current affairs programme for the non-Brit amongst you) has a “Best of Today” podcast available on the BBC site. While I regularly lsiten to the whole programme for a lot of the other news/current affairs programmes from Radio 4, the Today programme being 3 hours long has quite a bit of repetition (most people listen to it for up to an hour rather than the whole thing). Anyway, I had a look to see if the “Best of” was better than picking up the iPlayer version and forwarding to 08:00 today and found that they’d obviously had use of the TARDIS while no one at BBC Wales was looking. The date as I write this is Monday 6th April. Look at the podcast page, then see the close-up. (more…)

In December 2007 I took the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test/Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken) Level 3. The pass rate is 60% and I fell somewhat below this with an overall score of 54%, including a very disappointing score below 40% in the Listening section. I took the test again in December 2008 (it’s run worldwide and for all levels concurrently and only once per year at present). It takes them three months to process the results, which I got in the post this morning. This time round I passed well, with an overall 70% (280/400) and scores of 69/100 for Writing/Vocabulary, 78/100 for Listening and 133/200 for Reading/Grammar.
The Level 2 test is the one that shows a proper functional level of Japanese, though and that will take me at least one more year and probably until December 2010 until I can pass that one. Then it usually takes another two years to get to Level 1. Apart from anything else, for Level 4 you need 120 kanji, Level 3 needs 300, Level 2 needs 1000 and Level 1 needs 2000 (this is approximately equivalent to High School graduation literacy in Japan).
So, a long way to go in learning Japanese but a satisfying milestone.

So, I found a reasonably priced book on Amazon.co.uk available through one of their external sellers. Said seller is in Florida. As always when ordering such things I got three emails confirming the order: Amazon confirming the order; Amazon confirming the payment to the external seller; the external seller confirming receipt of the order. The odd thing is that the external seller sent me their confirmation message in Japanese. As this is a prolific external Amazon seller, whose trading name I vaguely recognise, I can only think that I’ve ordered from this seller via Amazon.co.jp (with whom I also have an account, of course) and their system somehow managed to tie up the two separate accounts – not difficult by any means given I don’t try to hide my identity particularly on these transactions, but it would take some work since the co.uk and co.jp accounts and indeed stores are separate entities.

I noted the other day that Pizza Hut in Japan is translated into Katakana as Piza Hatto. I commented that Hatto was more like boshi (hat) than koya (hut). I was then informed that everyone in Japan thinks that piza hatto refers to a Pizza Hat, since the logo (only in flash, I’m afraid) looks rather like a hat (instead of interpreting it as the roof (yane) of a small building). It just goes to show what a logo and translation can do to the meaning of your company name!

I’ve been meaning to write this for almost two weeks, since getting back from a brief trip to Matsuyama on Shikoku island (literally, the “fourth country”). Murata-sensei and I were visiting Orito-san of Ehime University and doing some research on CCTV in Japan. While I was there I had three meals that were worth reporting on, all for different reasons. (more…)

Last weekend after visiting the National Park for Nature Study in Meguro, we went for lunch at a Chinese restaurant near Shirokanedai called Bamiyan. It’s a chain whose principle distinctive feature is a bottomless cup for drinks via a self-service bar. Unfortunately this means that people tend to go in, order something cheap and occupy their seats for long periods. Rather than decide that the free bar is the problem, they apparently decided that it’s these "semi-free"loaders that are the issue and so they make the place very irritating to stay in for long. They do this by playing "music box" muzak constantly. One or two songs is bearable, but after half an hour it gets on the nerves to much that one has to leave. Certainly for me, this is definitely defeats the object as I won’t go to one of these again unless there’s no other choice.

There seems to have been an earthquake in Tokyo just now. Not a particularly strong one. I’m on the fifth floor of a nine story building and ti wibbled and wobbled around a bit but not worrying or anything. When I was here last year there were two or three earthquakes in Japan which were supposed to be possible to sense in Tokyo (well, I was living in Kawasaki actually, but there too) but I must have slept through the very minor tremors that were felt in this area.

It does raise the question, though, about why people move to earthquake and other risk zones (volcanoes etc). If you grew up somewhere, it’s reasonable to stay, I suppose, but it does make me wonder about my own risk perceptions and cost/benefit analyses that I’m willing to move somewhere prone to earthquakes, and pretty major ones at that. Still, I suppose it’s like many other potentially catastrophic events. You can’t let fear rule your life so you judge the risk as relatively low and get on with things. Otherwise you’d never leave your home (and most accidents happen in the home anyway).

Over the past few years I’ve had a relatively painless time with all the travelling I do. Sure, I’ve had my share of delayed flights (usually from Copenhagen into London) but rarely anything more serious. The worst was dropping my keys on a plane and not realising until getting to the car park and returning to the terminal after that airline had closed up shop for the night.

However, this trip to the US and Japan seems to be making up for the good luck I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of years. (more…)