The paper has been available on the arXiv for a while, and is now available through IEEE Computer Society's Digital Library.
@Article{van-meter07:_commun_links_distr_quant_comput,
author = {Rodney Van{ }Meter and Kae Nemoto and William J. Munro},
title = {Communication Links for Distributed Quantum
Computation},
journal = "IEEE Transactions on Computers",
volume = 56,
number = 12,
month = dec,
pages = {1643--1653},
year = 2007,
doi = {10.1109/TC.2007.70775}
}
Friday, October 12, 2007
Congrats Ryuji!
Keio's Ryuji Wakikawa just won one of Ericsson Japan's Young Scientist Awards for 2007. I haven't found an announcement in English, just the Japanese one.
Congratulations!
Congratulations!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The Story's Not Over
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven't been posting lately. Being an assistant professor is a lot of work :-).
The Williamson Daily News, my hometown newspaper, just published a nice profile of me.
Yes, life is always an adventure, though reading the article makes my life sound a lot more exciting, and my accomplishments more important, than they actually feel.
The Williamson Daily News, my hometown newspaper, just published a nice profile of me.
Yes, life is always an adventure, though reading the article makes my life sound a lot more exciting, and my accomplishments more important, than they actually feel.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
A Sad Note: Obituary for Ron Ayres
I'm devastated. Ron is the guy who brought me from Caltech to ISI. He was the sweetest guy on the planet -- and one of the smartest.
Ron was Caltech's very first CS Ph.D. I think there were two the year he graduated, and he came earlier in the alphabet, so he was the first to receive his diploma.
Not mentioned in the obituary is that Ron was the pivotal technical figure in the early days of the MOSIS project (now MOSIS.com). MOSIS, many of you know, is the microchip prototyping service originally run by USC's Information Sciences Institute. When started in the early 1980s, the idea that you could email or FTP a VLSI chip design somewhere and receive several (hopefully) working pieces of silicon ten weeks later was extremely radical, and transformed VLSI research in the U.S. Ron and Danny Cohen were, if memory serves, the cofounders of the project.
Ron was an early proponent of silicon compilation, taking a text program description of desired functions and creating a chip layout to match. His Integrated Circuit Language (ICL), a strongly-typed, polymorphic, garbage-collected, interactively compiled system, was perfect for the task. Unfortunately, Ron wasn't interested in playing the academic publishing game, and his influence is smaller than I think it ought to be.
Ron was also very interested in computer graphics. His Ph.D. adviser was Ivan Sutherland, who essentially invented the field of computer graphics. In the early 1970s, Ron did some clever and beautiful wire-frame stereograms of mathematical functions (including a Klein bottle) and printed them on a large plotter. In Ron's story, Ivan was unimpressed, and he later discovered that Ivan lacked stereoscopic vision -- apparently a common trait.
Ron may not (or may) have been as smart as Feynman, but he shared an intellectual trait: he thought *differently* from other people. He arrived at questions and solutions in a different fashion.
He also had an impressive collection of Hawaiian shirts, and was a lousy but enthusiastic volleyball player, an incorrigible punster, and an unrepentant TECO user into at least the mid-1990s. One thing I remember is the clatter of his HP graphics terminal -- Ron could type at an incredible rate and attacked the keyboard ferociously.
Ron was my boss, and a good one: he knew how to get the most out of someone like me. He told me, "You will spend a third of your time working on the main project I'm hiring you for, a third of your time on other unrelated tasks I ask you to do, and a third of your time doing what you want. I know I'll get something good out of it." I believe he got that management style from Danny. What Ron got out of my "free" time was a rewritten garbage collector and variable-size memory management -- ICL up to that point used Lisp cons cell-like memory management. I also helped edit a book he wrote on language design which was never published. I think I still have my copy somewhere...
Ron worked very hard but also knew how to have some fun -- more than once he looked at me and said, "It's a beautiful day, let's go to the beach." And we knocked off work and went body-surfing.
Below is the obituary as it appeared in the L.A. Times:
AYRES , Dr. Ronald F.
(53); Child Cello Virtuoso, Computer Scientist
and Cal Tech Faculty Instructor.
Dr. Ron Ayres, former Computer Science Lecturer
at the California Institute and Technology,
Computer Scientist at the University of Southern
California/Information Sciences Institute and
holder of numerous software patents, passed away
from natural causes at his home in Marina District on January 9, 2007.
Ron was the son of J. Marx Ayres, Consulting
Mechanical Engineer and Anita Lauda, Concert
Pianist. They raised their three children:
Denise, Ron and Gary in the Carthay Circle
District at 611 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles.
They all became musicians, playing the violin,
cello and viola respectively. Ron studied with
Naum Bendinsky and was a child protege student
of cellist icon, Gregory Priatagorsky. Denise and
Ron became teenage concert musicians, winning
numerous competitions, scholarships and rewards.
They performed in youth symphony orchestras, as
soloists and in trios. They were members of the
University of Southern California Junior Symphony
Orchestra and the Young Musicians Foundation
Debut Orchestra under the direction of Michel Tilson Thomas.
Ron was a brilliant student, completing Los
Angeles High School in 11/2 years and entering
Cal Tech at age 17. He set the cello aside to
concentrate on math and physics as a student of
Nobel Laureate, Dr. Richard P. Feyman. Ron lived
in Blacker House at Cal Tech for his first two
years, 1971-1972. He received his Bachelors,
Masters and PhD degrees from Cal Tech. His 1979
PhD research in Integrated Circuit Language was
later used to define and implement languages.
Dr. Ayres's groundbreaking work was first
published in his 1983 book, "VLSL Silicon
Compilation and the Art of Automatic Microchip
Design". He has numerous additional publications
on the enhancements and applications of his work.
He became a Founder and Vice President of Silicon
Compilers, Inc. along with Dr. Carver Mead for
the period 1981-1983. When the firm was sold, he
joined USC/Information Sciences Institute for the
period 1984-1995. In the last decade, Dr. Ayres
provided expert consultation services to others
and greatly enhanced his patented software. His
latest development efforts resulted in a 2003
Java compiler written in ICL, and a 2004
Type-centric ICL with modular implementation.
Ron Ayres lived in Venice, California for 29
years. He wanted to be close to the ocean and he
loved the creative activities and spirit of the
Venice Community. He liked to be known as a
beach bum who deeply loved his cat Precious.
Ron was never married and is survived by his
sister Denise, brother Gary, and father, Marx.
Ron was Caltech's very first CS Ph.D. I think there were two the year he graduated, and he came earlier in the alphabet, so he was the first to receive his diploma.
Not mentioned in the obituary is that Ron was the pivotal technical figure in the early days of the MOSIS project (now MOSIS.com). MOSIS, many of you know, is the microchip prototyping service originally run by USC's Information Sciences Institute. When started in the early 1980s, the idea that you could email or FTP a VLSI chip design somewhere and receive several (hopefully) working pieces of silicon ten weeks later was extremely radical, and transformed VLSI research in the U.S. Ron and Danny Cohen were, if memory serves, the cofounders of the project.
Ron was an early proponent of silicon compilation, taking a text program description of desired functions and creating a chip layout to match. His Integrated Circuit Language (ICL), a strongly-typed, polymorphic, garbage-collected, interactively compiled system, was perfect for the task. Unfortunately, Ron wasn't interested in playing the academic publishing game, and his influence is smaller than I think it ought to be.
Ron was also very interested in computer graphics. His Ph.D. adviser was Ivan Sutherland, who essentially invented the field of computer graphics. In the early 1970s, Ron did some clever and beautiful wire-frame stereograms of mathematical functions (including a Klein bottle) and printed them on a large plotter. In Ron's story, Ivan was unimpressed, and he later discovered that Ivan lacked stereoscopic vision -- apparently a common trait.
Ron may not (or may) have been as smart as Feynman, but he shared an intellectual trait: he thought *differently* from other people. He arrived at questions and solutions in a different fashion.
He also had an impressive collection of Hawaiian shirts, and was a lousy but enthusiastic volleyball player, an incorrigible punster, and an unrepentant TECO user into at least the mid-1990s. One thing I remember is the clatter of his HP graphics terminal -- Ron could type at an incredible rate and attacked the keyboard ferociously.
Ron was my boss, and a good one: he knew how to get the most out of someone like me. He told me, "You will spend a third of your time working on the main project I'm hiring you for, a third of your time on other unrelated tasks I ask you to do, and a third of your time doing what you want. I know I'll get something good out of it." I believe he got that management style from Danny. What Ron got out of my "free" time was a rewritten garbage collector and variable-size memory management -- ICL up to that point used Lisp cons cell-like memory management. I also helped edit a book he wrote on language design which was never published. I think I still have my copy somewhere...
Ron worked very hard but also knew how to have some fun -- more than once he looked at me and said, "It's a beautiful day, let's go to the beach." And we knocked off work and went body-surfing.
Below is the obituary as it appeared in the L.A. Times:
AYRES , Dr. Ronald F.
(53); Child Cello Virtuoso, Computer Scientist
and Cal Tech Faculty Instructor.
Dr. Ron Ayres, former Computer Science Lecturer
at the California Institute and Technology,
Computer Scientist at the University of Southern
California/Information Sciences Institute and
holder of numerous software patents, passed away
from natural causes at his home in Marina District on January 9, 2007.
Ron was the son of J. Marx Ayres, Consulting
Mechanical Engineer and Anita Lauda, Concert
Pianist. They raised their three children:
Denise, Ron and Gary in the Carthay Circle
District at 611 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles.
They all became musicians, playing the violin,
cello and viola respectively. Ron studied with
Naum Bendinsky and was a child protege student
of cellist icon, Gregory Priatagorsky. Denise and
Ron became teenage concert musicians, winning
numerous competitions, scholarships and rewards.
They performed in youth symphony orchestras, as
soloists and in trios. They were members of the
University of Southern California Junior Symphony
Orchestra and the Young Musicians Foundation
Debut Orchestra under the direction of Michel Tilson Thomas.
Ron was a brilliant student, completing Los
Angeles High School in 11/2 years and entering
Cal Tech at age 17. He set the cello aside to
concentrate on math and physics as a student of
Nobel Laureate, Dr. Richard P. Feyman. Ron lived
in Blacker House at Cal Tech for his first two
years, 1971-1972. He received his Bachelors,
Masters and PhD degrees from Cal Tech. His 1979
PhD research in Integrated Circuit Language was
later used to define and implement languages.
Dr. Ayres's groundbreaking work was first
published in his 1983 book, "VLSL Silicon
Compilation and the Art of Automatic Microchip
Design". He has numerous additional publications
on the enhancements and applications of his work.
He became a Founder and Vice President of Silicon
Compilers, Inc. along with Dr. Carver Mead for
the period 1981-1983. When the firm was sold, he
joined USC/Information Sciences Institute for the
period 1984-1995. In the last decade, Dr. Ayres
provided expert consultation services to others
and greatly enhanced his patented software. His
latest development efforts resulted in a 2003
Java compiler written in ICL, and a 2004
Type-centric ICL with modular implementation.
Ron Ayres lived in Venice, California for 29
years. He wanted to be close to the ocean and he
loved the creative activities and spirit of the
Venice Community. He liked to be known as a
beach bum who deeply loved his cat Precious.
Ron was never married and is survived by his
sister Denise, brother Gary, and father, Marx.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Anecdotal Warming
One season (or half a season) doesn't make much of a trend, but the Daily Yomiuri today has an article on how warm things are in parts of Japan that are normally covered by snow this time of year. In Niigata, it's raining. In Gunma, ice fishing hasn't started yet because the lake hasn't frozen over. In parts of Niigata, they're golfing instead of skiing. In Aomori, they've had to postpone a series of ski competitions because there's no snow (and it's too warm to make any).
Most of those parts of Japan are generally just below freezing in the winter, getting lots of snow but not really being bitterly cold. The paper says temperatures are 0.8 to 1.0C higher than average, but that sounds like an underestimate to me; 2-3C is what I would expect it to take to completely kill snow in those parts, but maybe it's more marginal than I think.
And on the news last night, they said that Moscow is 10C warmer than typical this time of year.
The article attributes the warming to El Nino. Make of it what you will...
Most of those parts of Japan are generally just below freezing in the winter, getting lots of snow but not really being bitterly cold. The paper says temperatures are 0.8 to 1.0C higher than average, but that sounds like an underestimate to me; 2-3C is what I would expect it to take to completely kill snow in those parts, but maybe it's more marginal than I think.
And on the news last night, they said that Moscow is 10C warmer than typical this time of year.
The article attributes the warming to El Nino. Make of it what you will...
Monday, January 15, 2007
Communication Links for Distributed Quantum Computation
R. Van Meter, K. Nemoto, W.J. Munro, "Communication Links for Distributed Quantum Computation," is now available as quant-ph/0701043.
Combined with papers such as "Arithmetic on a Distributed-Memory Quantum Multicomputer" (which is an extended version of our ISCA paper available on my publications page), we are gradually building a complete picture of a machine that will run quantum programs effectively in a distributed fashion.
Combined with papers such as "Arithmetic on a Distributed-Memory Quantum Multicomputer" (which is an extended version of our ISCA paper available on my publications page), we are gradually building a complete picture of a machine that will run quantum programs effectively in a distributed fashion.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Caltech, the Basketball Powerhouse
After last week's by the men's team over Bard College -- the first NCAA win in eleven years -- the women topped it with their first NCAA win ever, beating Pomona Saturday night. Go Beavers!
Rick Greenwald has made a documentary called Quantum Hoops about the Caltech basketball team, which will premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in a few weeks. Good timing, Rick! It's too far a commute from Tokyo, but I certainly hope to see the film.
Rick Greenwald has made a documentary called Quantum Hoops about the Caltech basketball team, which will premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in a few weeks. Good timing, Rick! It's too far a commute from Tokyo, but I certainly hope to see the film.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Winny Defense Breaches
Winny, the popular Japanese file sharing program, has been linked to at least 27 cases of data exposure from the GSDF (Ground Self-Defense Forces) since 2002. According to sources, no classified data has been compromised.
Last February a big incident was discovered, which led the Defense Agency (as of yesterday, upgraded to the Defense Ministry, giving it a cabinet position for the first time since the war) to procure 56,0000 PCs to be used by SDF personnel. Why? Because they were using their home PCs for SDF-related work, due to lack of access to computers at work. Presumably it will be easier for them to prevent the installation of software such as Winny on ministry-owned computers, though repeated security breaches elsewhere via company-owned computers shows it to be no panacea.
This is the same Winny whose author was recently convicted of knowingly supporting piracy of music and movies, but as far as I know, these kinds of data leaks are unintentional. I haven't followed the details of these breaches, but I suspect it's mis-setting of the controls resulting in accidental sharing, though it's also possible that there are security holes in Winny itself.
Last February a big incident was discovered, which led the Defense Agency (as of yesterday, upgraded to the Defense Ministry, giving it a cabinet position for the first time since the war) to procure 56,0000 PCs to be used by SDF personnel. Why? Because they were using their home PCs for SDF-related work, due to lack of access to computers at work. Presumably it will be easier for them to prevent the installation of software such as Winny on ministry-owned computers, though repeated security breaches elsewhere via company-owned computers shows it to be no panacea.
This is the same Winny whose author was recently convicted of knowingly supporting piracy of music and movies, but as far as I know, these kinds of data leaks are unintentional. I haven't followed the details of these breaches, but I suspect it's mis-setting of the controls resulting in accidental sharing, though it's also possible that there are security holes in Winny itself.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
New Beginnings
Mount Fuji at dawn on New Year's Day, taken near the border between Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures. Not a bad photo for a little cell phone camera.
I'll be taking up a position as Assistant Professor of Environmental Information at Keio University's Shonan Fujisawa Campus. I plan to focus my research broadly on post-Moore's Law computer technologies, with emphasis on quantum computing, and on large-scale distributed storage systems.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
World's Oldest Computer to Keep on Calculatin'
The FACOM 128B, first placed in service in 1959, has a new lease on life. Fujitsu plans to keep it running until 2019, when it will be 60 years old.
Relay-based, it does an 8-decimal-digit add or subtract in about 0.15 seconds, and a multiply in about 0.3 sec. I don't see anything mentioning storage capacity (primary or secondary) or even technology, but the article does say the machine covers 65 square meters, which is probably larger than the average Japanese apartment. The machine apparently has some fault-tolerance mechanisms including automatic reexecution of some faulty instructions. One of the articles says the machine is not a stored-program machine, but doesn't mention how you actually did program the thing -- plugs? switches?
The people who know how to maintain the thing are all retired, but have agreed to teach some youngsters how to do it. They also plan to digitize the circuit diagrams for it.
The article speaks somewhat in the future tense, "to be restored", but it also says the computer is actually still in use.
Numazu is south of Mount Fuji; it takes a little over an hour to get there from Tokyo Station via shinkansen and local train. Seeing this thing would be a fun field trip.
See the Daily Yomiuri article and IPSJ's online computer museum.
Relay-based, it does an 8-decimal-digit add or subtract in about 0.15 seconds, and a multiply in about 0.3 sec. I don't see anything mentioning storage capacity (primary or secondary) or even technology, but the article does say the machine covers 65 square meters, which is probably larger than the average Japanese apartment. The machine apparently has some fault-tolerance mechanisms including automatic reexecution of some faulty instructions. One of the articles says the machine is not a stored-program machine, but doesn't mention how you actually did program the thing -- plugs? switches?
The people who know how to maintain the thing are all retired, but have agreed to teach some youngsters how to do it. They also plan to digitize the circuit diagrams for it.
The article speaks somewhat in the future tense, "to be restored", but it also says the computer is actually still in use.
Numazu is south of Mount Fuji; it takes a little over an hour to get there from Tokyo Station via shinkansen and local train. Seeing this thing would be a fun field trip.
See the Daily Yomiuri article and IPSJ's online computer museum.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Winny Developer Convicted
Isamu Kaneko, the guy who wrote Winny, one of the most popular peer-to-peer file sharing programs here in Japan, has been convicted of enabling users to violate the Copyright Law act. The Kyoto District Court fined him 1.5 million yen (about $13K). He plans to appeal.
Winny was released in May 2002, while Kaneko was a research assistant at Todai (University of Tokyo), and Kaneko was arrested and indicted in May 2004. Two men who used his software to distribute copyrighted movies have already been convicted and given suspended jail sentences of a year.
Apparently the case hinged on some comments Kaneko made indicating that he knew his software was being used for illegal purposes.
One estimate is that Winny users still violate copyright at a rate that represents 10 billion yen (almost $100M) every six hours. There are also malware programs out there that leak information from PCs onto Winny, which has been the source of some of the serious data privacy breaches in the last few years.
One thing that seems remarkable about this case to me is that Japan has often seemed to have a rather laissez faire attitude toward copyright violation. American music afficianados know that imported Japanese CDs often sell for $30, and assume that someone is making a killing doing the importing, but in fact, that's the common sale price here. In response, sales are actually low; CD rental shops are more common than sales. Sales of blank minidiscs are correspondingly high -- guess what happens when that rented CD goes to someone's home? Copy-protected CDs are becoming more common here as a result.
Trademarks, especially of foreign companies, likewise are erratically protected. Fake goods are common, and near-imitations of trademarks that probably wouldn't past muster in the U.S. abound. Recently a very popular series of "one coin" 500 yen DVDs has appeared, containing bad transfers of bad prints of old movies (I admit, I watch them). The movies are all 50 years old or older, which is the copyright limit here, so they're technically not illegal, but I suspect in the U.S. the original studio would still attempt to make the DVD producers' lives difficult.
Until they pull them down, the Daily Yomiuri's articles on this are here, here, and here. (the editorial is titled, "Winny ruling spotlights engineers' moral duties").
Winny was released in May 2002, while Kaneko was a research assistant at Todai (University of Tokyo), and Kaneko was arrested and indicted in May 2004. Two men who used his software to distribute copyrighted movies have already been convicted and given suspended jail sentences of a year.
Apparently the case hinged on some comments Kaneko made indicating that he knew his software was being used for illegal purposes.
One estimate is that Winny users still violate copyright at a rate that represents 10 billion yen (almost $100M) every six hours. There are also malware programs out there that leak information from PCs onto Winny, which has been the source of some of the serious data privacy breaches in the last few years.
One thing that seems remarkable about this case to me is that Japan has often seemed to have a rather laissez faire attitude toward copyright violation. American music afficianados know that imported Japanese CDs often sell for $30, and assume that someone is making a killing doing the importing, but in fact, that's the common sale price here. In response, sales are actually low; CD rental shops are more common than sales. Sales of blank minidiscs are correspondingly high -- guess what happens when that rented CD goes to someone's home? Copy-protected CDs are becoming more common here as a result.
Trademarks, especially of foreign companies, likewise are erratically protected. Fake goods are common, and near-imitations of trademarks that probably wouldn't past muster in the U.S. abound. Recently a very popular series of "one coin" 500 yen DVDs has appeared, containing bad transfers of bad prints of old movies (I admit, I watch them). The movies are all 50 years old or older, which is the copyright limit here, so they're technically not illegal, but I suspect in the U.S. the original studio would still attempt to make the DVD producers' lives difficult.
Until they pull them down, the Daily Yomiuri's articles on this are here, here, and here. (the editorial is titled, "Winny ruling spotlights engineers' moral duties").
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Robots Galore
The Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Tuesday that there is a new robotics association here, with Kyoji Takenaka to be its first chairman. It includes about 210 manufacturers, universities and local governments (no idea if Keio is involved).
According to the Japan Robot Association (JARA, which is an older organization), 690 billion yen worth of robots (about six billion dollars) were sold in Japan in 2005, up almost twenty percent from the year before.
According to the Japan Robot Association (JARA, which is an older organization), 690 billion yen worth of robots (about six billion dollars) were sold in Japan in 2005, up almost twenty percent from the year before.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
DoCoMo Subscribers Drop
DoCoMo reported a couple of days ago its first-ever drop in subscribers to its mobile phone service. In the month of November,17,500 more people canceled their service than signed up for it. KDDI and Softbank both had increases, of 324,900 and 68,700, respectively.
This is probably due to the start of number portability. It's now possible to change providers and keep your phone number, though of course not your keitai's email address.
This is probably due to the start of number portability. It's now possible to change providers and keep your phone number, though of course not your keitai's email address.
A Change in Attitude Toward Corruption?
It often comes as a surprise to people who think of Japan as an orderly society, but there's a lot of corruption here. One of the biggest forms is contracting out government construction projects. In the last month and a half, three of Japan's 47 governors have been arrested on bid-rigging charges. The government decides on a project, decides on a maximum budget, then puts it out to bid. In theory, the government's pre-decided ceiling is secret. But in Miyazaki-ken, for example, the winning bid was an average of 95.8% of the government's ceiling. The governor was arrested yesterday. The governors of Fukushima and Wakayama have been arrested, too.
That's just an example; there are many others. The government and press have been on an anti-corruption campaign the last couple of years, attacking interests including those that led to poor oversight of large apartment complexes, which are now believed to not be earthquake-safe. But this seems to happen every few years; the governors of Ibaraki and Miyagi were arrested in 1993, during my first tour of duty in Japan. So I figured this one would blow over, too, but now I'm starting to think they're serious about cleaning things up.
This problem extends even to research; professors of Todai (U. Tokyo), Keio, and Waseda have all gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar in the last three years or so. This has resulted in intense scrutiny of all research-related expenses. Every expense report I file gets gone over with a very fine-toothed comb. At the macro level, the funding of grants has slowed down due to the addition of more checks.
Part of the problem comes from a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" cooperativeness. Especially in government construction contracting, many of the government officials expect to Descend From Heaven (amakudari) to a cushy advisory role for the construction companies they nominally supervise. Not exactly conducive to strict oversight.
That's just an example; there are many others. The government and press have been on an anti-corruption campaign the last couple of years, attacking interests including those that led to poor oversight of large apartment complexes, which are now believed to not be earthquake-safe. But this seems to happen every few years; the governors of Ibaraki and Miyagi were arrested in 1993, during my first tour of duty in Japan. So I figured this one would blow over, too, but now I'm starting to think they're serious about cleaning things up.
This problem extends even to research; professors of Todai (U. Tokyo), Keio, and Waseda have all gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar in the last three years or so. This has resulted in intense scrutiny of all research-related expenses. Every expense report I file gets gone over with a very fine-toothed comb. At the macro level, the funding of grants has slowed down due to the addition of more checks.
Part of the problem comes from a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" cooperativeness. Especially in government construction contracting, many of the government officials expect to Descend From Heaven (amakudari) to a cushy advisory role for the construction companies they nominally supervise. Not exactly conducive to strict oversight.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
"I Am My Own Rival"
Yokozuna Asashoryu finished off the year with a 15-0 zensho yusho (all-wins championship) in the Kyushu basho (tournament). He sewed up the trophies yesterday, so the only question today was whether he would get his fifth perfect record or not. He was up against Chiyotaikai an ozeki with a solid tournament going. (Not sure what the heck I'm talking about? Click the links, should be obvious.) Chiyo blasted out of the tachiai, had Asa back on his heels and reeling, and stuck his elbow in Asa's throat and starting pushing. Asa slid all the way back to the bales at the edge of the ring, teetered there... and for some inexplicable reason, Chiyo pulled his elbow out of Asa's neck and tried to wrap his arm around Asa's shoulders. That was all the opening Asa needed. He slipped under Chiyo's arm, came around the side, and picked Chiyo up and put him down outside the ring. Chiyo, at 160kg (350 pounds), is probably intermediate weight for a sumo wrestler, but picking up a guy that size who doesn't want to be picked up is quite a trick.
Asashoryu is the perfect sumo wrestler. If I could pick one adjective to describe him, it would be "fierce". He hates to lose, concentrates incredibly well, is never intimidated, and goes all out, every match. He has technique, he has strength -- his shoulders and legs are incredible. He has unreasonable amounts of speed for a guy 148kg -- lose contact with him for a fraction of a second, and he's around your side, and it's all over. But above all, he has that fierce will to win.
He said yesterday, after his win guaranteed him the Emperor's Cup, "I am my own rival." Some say he does so well because he has no competition; the ozeki are all bumblers, over the hill, or injured most of the time. I say Asa is just plain better than they are. I've watched Konishiki, Takanohana, Wakanohana, Musashimaru, and Akebono many times, and while it would be entertaining to watch Asa go up against one of them in his prime, my money right now is on Asa as the best wrestler of the last fifteen years. Koni-chan and Maru had that immovable bulk (and Maru a fierceness of his own), Taka that beautiful technique, Ake that long, long leverage -- but I'll take Asa. His strength is a clear step above Taka, who is perhaps next on the list, and I think his technique is as good (that page above lists nineteen techniques used in his last six tournaments (67 wins) -- great versatility, since the ozeki run nine to fifteen, albeit for smaller win totals). Both know how to win the big matches; Taka perhaps had more of them that Asa has had so far, but I think Asa is his equal in ability to win them.
In 2005, Asa's record was 84-6, and he won all six tournaments. In my opinion, he was sportsman of the year for the entire planet. 2006 has not gone quite as well due to an injury mid-year, but when healthy (as he usually is -- nothing seems to nag at him) he has no rivals. Except, of course, himself.
Asashoryu is the perfect sumo wrestler. If I could pick one adjective to describe him, it would be "fierce". He hates to lose, concentrates incredibly well, is never intimidated, and goes all out, every match. He has technique, he has strength -- his shoulders and legs are incredible. He has unreasonable amounts of speed for a guy 148kg -- lose contact with him for a fraction of a second, and he's around your side, and it's all over. But above all, he has that fierce will to win.
He said yesterday, after his win guaranteed him the Emperor's Cup, "I am my own rival." Some say he does so well because he has no competition; the ozeki are all bumblers, over the hill, or injured most of the time. I say Asa is just plain better than they are. I've watched Konishiki, Takanohana, Wakanohana, Musashimaru, and Akebono many times, and while it would be entertaining to watch Asa go up against one of them in his prime, my money right now is on Asa as the best wrestler of the last fifteen years. Koni-chan and Maru had that immovable bulk (and Maru a fierceness of his own), Taka that beautiful technique, Ake that long, long leverage -- but I'll take Asa. His strength is a clear step above Taka, who is perhaps next on the list, and I think his technique is as good (that page above lists nineteen techniques used in his last six tournaments (67 wins) -- great versatility, since the ozeki run nine to fifteen, albeit for smaller win totals). Both know how to win the big matches; Taka perhaps had more of them that Asa has had so far, but I think Asa is his equal in ability to win them.
In 2005, Asa's record was 84-6, and he won all six tournaments. In my opinion, he was sportsman of the year for the entire planet. 2006 has not gone quite as well due to an injury mid-year, but when healthy (as he usually is -- nothing seems to nag at him) he has no rivals. Except, of course, himself.
Beautifying Kyoto
Today's Daily Yomiuri contains evidence of the visual blight of Japan that Alex Kerr talks about in his fantastic book Dogs and Demons. A front page article says that Kyoto will ban flashing neon signs atop buildings, starting next year and going into effect over the next six years. Kerr has watched the decay of Kyoto's beauty since the 1960s, and must be saying that this move is far overdue. The city should, by all rights, be a charming, quiet place, good for strolling narrow streets with old houses and traditional restaurants. Instead, except for the neighborhoods of Pontocho and the Philosopher's Walk, most of it is rather garish, especially at night, combined with some world-class ugly buildings. The Japan advertising association naturally says it's not the only ones to blame, as if that's a good enough reason not to fix one of the worst problems. Kyoto will also lower the maximum allowable height of new buildings, especially around Kyoto's world heritage sites.
Then, on page 3 of the DY, there is a picture of the proposed New Tokyo Tower, to be the world's tallest transmission tower when it is finished in 2011. Designed by Tadao Ando (arguably Japan's best and most famous architect, and deservedly so -- he does some beautiful things with curved concrete that work wonderfully in their environment, rather than simply destroying it) and sculptor Kiichi Sumikawa. The tower will be triangular at the bottom, round at the top. Personally, I'm not sure it's needed.
Then, on page 3 of the DY, there is a picture of the proposed New Tokyo Tower, to be the world's tallest transmission tower when it is finished in 2011. Designed by Tadao Ando (arguably Japan's best and most famous architect, and deservedly so -- he does some beautiful things with curved concrete that work wonderfully in their environment, rather than simply destroying it) and sculptor Kiichi Sumikawa. The tower will be triangular at the bottom, round at the top. Personally, I'm not sure it's needed.
Friday, November 24, 2006
IIJ "Improves" Their Service
IIJ, Internet Initiative Japan, is one of the oldest and most respected ISPs in the country. I've never used anyone else. But the day before yesterday, they implemented an "improvement" to their network that has me looking for another ISP.
With no prior announcement that I saw, they started blocking outbound SMTP. This means that, all of a sudden, I can't send email from my house, except by using some web-based mail system such as Gmail.
I use three different email accounts that I need outbound SMTP access for. I called their service line, and the woman I talked to suggested that I get them to open up SMTP on another port. Ugh. Like that would solve anything, even if I could get them to do it.
I threatened to cancel my service, and she said that any other ISP I can find will likely either already have port 25 blocked, or be doing so in the near future. It's an anti-spam measure recommended by the Japan Email Anti-Abuse Group (JEAG).
I haven't been this angry about some utility in a long time...
With no prior announcement that I saw, they started blocking outbound SMTP. This means that, all of a sudden, I can't send email from my house, except by using some web-based mail system such as Gmail.
I use three different email accounts that I need outbound SMTP access for. I called their service line, and the woman I talked to suggested that I get them to open up SMTP on another port. Ugh. Like that would solve anything, even if I could get them to do it.
I threatened to cancel my service, and she said that any other ISP I can find will likely either already have port 25 blocked, or be doing so in the near future. It's an anti-spam measure recommended by the Japan Email Anti-Abuse Group (JEAG).
I haven't been this angry about some utility in a long time...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Tsunami
I'm watching a news press briefing right now about the tsunami. It was triggered by an 8.1 earthquake several hundred km northeast of the northeastern tip of Hokkaido, the northernmost of the four major islands of Japan.
The earthquake was felt only mildly in Hokkaido and not at all in Tokyo; I wouldn't even have known about it except that I happened to check a news website before going to bed.
The threat is quite serious, and is being treated so, but at this particular moment the only reports of activity are in the 20-40cm range. That's big enough to create serious water coming onshore; they said that the height can be amplified two to ten times that when it hits land, depending on conditions.
All of the TV stations except the shopping channels (which probably run only canned material) have a map of Japan with flashing coastline covering most of Hokkaido and the eastern coast of Honshu all the way down from Tohoku, past Chiba and Tokyo down to about Nagoya. But they are saying that the size and threat are smaller down here.
We live high enough and far enough inland that we're in no danger, and neither are our friends, but there are plenty of people close enough to the coast to worry about.
The predicted time of the earliest arrival has come and gone for the northern part of the country with no major waves reported, but we're not out of the woods yet...
Someone (the head?) of the meteorological agency is giving a briefing at this moment...
The earthquake was felt only mildly in Hokkaido and not at all in Tokyo; I wouldn't even have known about it except that I happened to check a news website before going to bed.
The threat is quite serious, and is being treated so, but at this particular moment the only reports of activity are in the 20-40cm range. That's big enough to create serious water coming onshore; they said that the height can be amplified two to ten times that when it hits land, depending on conditions.
All of the TV stations except the shopping channels (which probably run only canned material) have a map of Japan with flashing coastline covering most of Hokkaido and the eastern coast of Honshu all the way down from Tohoku, past Chiba and Tokyo down to about Nagoya. But they are saying that the size and threat are smaller down here.
We live high enough and far enough inland that we're in no danger, and neither are our friends, but there are plenty of people close enough to the coast to worry about.
The predicted time of the earliest arrival has come and gone for the northern part of the country with no major waves reported, but we're not out of the woods yet...
Someone (the head?) of the meteorological agency is giving a briefing at this moment...
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
IPW2200 on FC6
Sorry, I still haven't written up my full notes on getting Fedora Core 6 running on my Sony Vaio Type T laptop, but one tidbit:
Sometimes when I boot, the initialization of the IPW2200 builtin WLAN interface doesn't happen properly. This symptom is this:
and networking fails to work. This condition sometimes persists over reboots, it seems, though as far as I can tell it's just a random phenomenon, so I don't know why it would persist.
The solution is:
Hope this helps somebody; meantime, if any of you know why it's happening and how to stop it from happening, let me know.
Sometimes when I boot, the initialization of the IPW2200 builtin WLAN interface doesn't happen properly. This symptom is this:
[rdv@localhost ~]$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
__tmp1804289383 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"xxxx"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:07:40:xx:xx:xx
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=62/100 Signal level=-63 dBm Noise level=-85 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:482 Missed beacon:20
eth0 no wireless extensions.
sit0 no wireless extensions.
and networking fails to work. This condition sometimes persists over reboots, it seems, though as far as I can tell it's just a random phenomenon, so I don't know why it would persist.
The solution is:
[root@localhost rdv]# rmmod ipw2200
[root@localhost rdv]# modprobe !$
modprobe ipw2200
[root@localhost rdv]# iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
sit0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"xxxx"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:07:40:xx:xx:xx
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=67/100 Signal level=-60 dBm Noise level=-86 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:10
Hope this helps somebody; meantime, if any of you know why it's happening and how to stop it from happening, let me know.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Hello, Dali
I had the day off yesterday, and went to the Ueno Go Club (first time) and the Salvador Dali Centennial Exhibition at the Ueno Mori Museum. The exhibit is well worth seeing, something like a hundred of his works, starting from his teens and going into the 1980s. I was surprised to see some Cubist works (in both form and palette) in his early period. If this exhibition is any judge, surrealism sprang from his head full-blown in about 1927; I didn't see anything I'd consider a "transitional" work.
The logistics aren't perfect. His pencil sketches are dimly lit, presumably to protect the paper, but that makes them difficult to appreciate. And he painted a couple of stereo pairs which are very large; it's impossible to get far enough away from them to cross your eyes and see the stereo effect without a crowd gathering between you and the paintings.
Speaking of which, though it was a Wednesday afternoon, the museum was crowded. Go early.
The catalog appears to be only in Japanese, though the works were all titled in both English and Japanese. Some of the quotes on the wall were in English, some in Spanish, all translated into Japanese. But for paintings, at least, an English explanation is optional; we recently went to see the exhibit of Chinese terra-cotta warriors at the Tokyo-Edo Museum, and that also had no English, which would definitely leave you lost if you couldn't read Japanese. "What the heck is that? When was it made?" Those are important questions for historical artifacts.
Anyway, Dali is there until Jan. 4. Don't wait!
The logistics aren't perfect. His pencil sketches are dimly lit, presumably to protect the paper, but that makes them difficult to appreciate. And he painted a couple of stereo pairs which are very large; it's impossible to get far enough away from them to cross your eyes and see the stereo effect without a crowd gathering between you and the paintings.
Speaking of which, though it was a Wednesday afternoon, the museum was crowded. Go early.
The catalog appears to be only in Japanese, though the works were all titled in both English and Japanese. Some of the quotes on the wall were in English, some in Spanish, all translated into Japanese. But for paintings, at least, an English explanation is optional; we recently went to see the exhibit of Chinese terra-cotta warriors at the Tokyo-Edo Museum, and that also had no English, which would definitely leave you lost if you couldn't read Japanese. "What the heck is that? When was it made?" Those are important questions for historical artifacts.
Anyway, Dali is there until Jan. 4. Don't wait!
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