Fourth of July letter to my government 4 Jul 2013 | 10:09 pm

(this is a copy of a letter which I’ve sent to various representatives in government) As a concerned citizen, I know you understand that I must occasionally voice my concern through letters such as t...

NSA’s PRISM: from the minds of conspiracy nuts, turns out to be reality 7 Jun 2013 | 04:50 pm

The real shame about NSA/PRISM is that everyone will forget about it next week or next month. Just like we forgot about Trapwire and other endless abuses in the name of protecting society. The US is n...

Quick style comparison of mobile image search sites 10 May 2013 | 09:00 pm

The other day I glanced at a classmate using Baidu to perform an image search and was impressed with their presentation: Note the nice big images and the lack of margins around images. After seeing th...

Kyoto Cherry Blossoms 2013 (京都の桜２０１３年) 30 Apr 2013 | 08:12 pm

Check out my cherry blossoms 2013 set on Flickr. Japan has a healthy fascination with the beauty of nature, and this includes the ephemeral cherry blossoms. And one of the prime locations for cherry b...

Video: Spring in Kyoto (京都の春) 15 Apr 2013 | 08:26 pm

How to import imiwa? vocabulary lists directly into Anki (iOS/iPhone guide) 27 Feb 2013 | 07:07 pm

For the last six months, I’ve mainly been using imiwa? for iOS to look up Japanese words whenever I don’t know them (mostly in class). However, I found that I built up big lists without ever reviewing...

Japan: from miniature train to bullet train 29 Jan 2013 | 02:08 pm

(view the full image, image credit) A long time ago, four black ships appeared off the coast of Japan, which had closed itself off from the world and its influences. These ships were from the US, and ...

Forms of Escapism 9 Dec 2012 | 07:44 am

I’ve been thinking lately that the fates of so many are motivated by, in a word, escapism. Including my own fate. These are folks whose lives seem quite different on first glance, but turn out to be s...

A theory of leisure time, choice, and happiness 20 Oct 2012 | 09:13 am

This is finally the end of my first week in Japanese language school here in Kyoto. It’s been quite a long week, with the most studying I’ve ever done in my life. We’ve gone through nine chapters in a...

Descartes on building software frameworks 2 Oct 2012 | 06:52 pm

Years ago I read Descartes’s Discourse on Method for what I found to be some of the more interesting philosophy courses of my college career: those of the history of modern philosophy. Modern philosop...