cat /proc/claus | java

As some people may or may not know, one of the japanese traditions for the new year is the sending of new-year cards, or Nengajyos, as they’re called here.

What not so many people (at least not so many foreigners) know is that the card exchange also serves as a kind of lottery: Each postcard has a number, and on january 14th the post office draws prizes based on the number of postcards sold.

This year, for instance, the first prize was a choice out of 5 options: A trip to hawaii, a domestic trip to anywhere in Japan, a laptop, a home theater, or a videocamera/printer set. The second prize was a food set, and the third prize was “a comemorative stamp sheet”.

Well, I was lucky enough that one of the about 15 cards I received this year won the third prize, and went to collect it in the nearby post office. It was a little dissappointing, though, when the lady in the counter handed me said “stamp sheet”: It contained the totality of 2 (TWO!) stamps…

Well, better than nothing, I guess!

I wonder if one of the postcards I sent was awarded something better.

Random anedocte about japanese culture:

To tonight I pack my things and prepare to go jogging. As I walk outside of the laboratory, I start whistling some music that was in my head, and head for the elevator. Midway, I remember that I had forgotten my entrance card, and head back to the laboratory, still whistling.

Y., in the lab, then informs me that I shouldn’t whistle at night: it seems that there is a japanese superstition where whistling at night brings out thieves!

Certainly an interesting new piece of information!

Wanna share any piece of interesting superstition you know?

One of the pillars of scientific method is Peer review. This week, my advisor asked me to help him review a paper for a conference - it was my first time reviewing someone’s else work. Too bad the paper’s quality was not up to standards… bad english, lack of bibliographical review, proofless statements. The idea even seemed kind of original, but I can’t shake the feeling that some grad student just read a few books, quickly put a program together, and tried to publish it like that.

… Just like me :-/

At night, I went to Akihabara to relax… I lost myself in the “laox hobby store”, where they have materials for all kinds of japanese nerds… there was a floor exclusively for train-maniacs, with information sheets about trains all over japan, and even CDs with recordings of trains announcements:

“mamonaku, ichiban-sen ni densha ga mairimasu”

wow.

We got lost in many other places, but I have to go back to work now. :-/

Well, it is that time of the year again, when I change my wallpaper to match the season. I’ve decided to make it a habit to take pictures of the nearby Kashiwa no Ha park, and use them as source for my wallpapers.

The new look of my workspace can be seen in the “desktop” image in the right column. You can also notice the running program. That is a demonstration of my current research topic - ant clustering. If you want to try and run it yourself, feel free - here is the link. You’ll need to install the swarm library, though.

Changing the subject, recently I got from many sources (friends from Brazil and slashdot.jp) about a “cellular ringtone that only teens/young adults can hear”. Quite interesting history, I couldn’t hear, and in my lab, out of 15 people, only 2 could… what about you? Try it.

Time for class.

Paulo wrote in his blog that I was going to explain to everyone what the Golden Week is all about. Well, time to put on my “sempai hat” and make a brief explanation. (A very brief one)

Golden week is The first week of May, when there is a cluster of holidays in Japan. 29 of april is Green day, May 3 is “constitution day”, may 5 is “children (boys) day”, and may 4 (the best one) is “free day” - officially “public holiday”. If one of these days fall in a sunday, the day off is moved to the next monday, and if we have any workdays between the golden week, we usually take a day off. In this particular year we had a great golden week, for the arrangment of weekdays meant that only 1st and 2nd of may, monday and tuesday, were regular days - which, of course, were given away by most schools and companies.

The funny thing about golden week is that these days offs were moved around a lot just for the sake of golden week itself. “Public Holiday” day and “green day” were created specially for the golden week, and from 2007 on, green day will become “emperor showa” day, and “public holiday” will become “green day”.

All for historical accuracy, I’m sure

Yay.