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November 2019

Education Gaps

Here is a secret about me:  I did not actually go to traditional high school.  I was home-schooled.  My feelings about home-schooling, based upon my experience, are decidedly mixed, and lean negative, but that’s not a discussion I want to get into here. One of the things that has haunted me through most of my life was the feeling that I had major gaps in my education.  I think perhaps one of the reasons that my interests are so varied and diverse is a subconscious desire to close those gaps. … Read More »Education Gaps

Why I Blog.

I have been blogging in one form or another for about twenty or twenty-five years now.  I was blogging back when the only way you could blog was mark up the HTML yourself and put it on a static page, then manually link to it.  Then WordPress came out and made it easier, and there are a few other blogging platforms that are probably better in one way or other. I blog because I am curious and I like to share my curiosity.  I am, if not educated, at least… Read More »Why I Blog.

Multithreading

I am a computer engineer.  Before I learned Japanese, I have learned about sixteen different computer languages to a degree of proficiency with which I can make production applications out of them.  In doing so, I realized that there are features every language that runs on a procedural basis will have, and each language implements these using a slightly different syntax.  The same thing is essentially true with human languages:  why do all languages have essentially the same underlying conceptual structure, and only differ by means of vocabulary and grammar? … Read More »Multithreading

Thanksgiving

I don’t often pay attention to the stats on this blog.  Quite frankly, I write because I want to.  I have no illusions that I’ll ever be able to monetize this, and I have never sought to.  If this blog ever gains enough popularity that I can try other projects I’ve been meaning to, perhaps then I can at least recoup the cost of hosting it, but as for right now, I’m not concerned with it.  But that said, tonight I looked at the stats, and this month has been… Read More »Thanksgiving

J-Pop vs K-Pop

I will not say that I am a huge fan of K-Pop, nor am I a huge fan of J-Pop, but I am more familiar with J-Pop than K-Pop.  But I find myself very impressed with the K-Pop groups I have seen.  The other day I saw a “Girls’ Generation” cover of “Dancing Queen” – they did it in English, and without a discernable accent.  It was extremely high quality.  Frankly, it was much higher quality than I would expect out of a J-Pop group.  More frankly, any J-Pop group save,… Read More »J-Pop vs K-Pop

Why I study Japanese

A previous commenter, as seems to be the case a lot, got me thinking about why I study Japanese. In all truth, I am somewhat of a misanthrope.  I’m not usually very fond of people.  I am pretty good at interacting with people in a competent way, and I do not dislike everyone, but in most cases I can just take them or leave them.  So the question of why I am studying a different language, especially one as different as Japanese, is a fair one.  And truth be told,… Read More »Why I study Japanese

Why I Could Never be Japanese

A couple of weeks ago and a few posts ago, I wrote about a part of Japanese history and culture that really bothered me.  Nothing in it was unfactual to the best of my knowledge, though I was perhaps a little harsher than… No.  No I wasn’t.  That was a topic that I was actually holding back on a bit. I still lost two followers.  I don’t think I’ve lost 4% of followers from one post on any blog, ever. It’s not so much that I keep track of these… Read More »Why I Could Never be Japanese

Why does a Classically Trained Pianist like J-Pop?

As I might have mentioned at one point, I am a classically trained musician.  I am familiar with most of the works of many major composers, but my favorite classical pieces – or romantic pieces, as the case may be, are some of the more famous piano concertos.  Those by Saint-Saens, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Schumann – I love them all and have been listening to them for many years.  I love the complexity, the interplay between the soloist instruments and the orchestra, and most important, how even though there are many… Read More »Why does a Classically Trained Pianist like J-Pop?

Sudoku

I’ve been recently learning how to do sudoku puzzles, and it turns out that I’m really good at it with the right hints, and really bad at the harder ones otherwise.  But I can’t help but to find some similarities between sudoku and the Japanese language. Both of them – particularly the harder sudoku – are incredibly intimidating when you first look at them.  Sudoku has only a few numbers filled in, and you’re thinking “I’m supposed to deduce a solution from this?  But then, you start to learn, and as the… Read More »Sudoku

Uncomfortable

Note to Japanese readers:  if you are not prepared to accept a rather harsh criticism of your culture, please stop reading now. A couple of days ago, I learned about the behavior of the Japanese in the second world war, and it rather shocked me.  I didn’t really understand why the Japanese were (and to some degree, are) so reviled in South and East Asia, but after hearing about some of the atrocities that were done in Manchuria, China, and the Philippines, among others, I think I understand it now. … Read More »Uncomfortable