Viewing profile — nourishingvoid

I agree wholeheartedly. This is a great book that is truly terrifying because Dick is constantly subverting the characters’ (and reader’s) perceptions of reality. He does this to a…

I was lucky enough to study in the same lab as the author while he was doing his doctorate. Graham has a real talent for explaining complicated concepts in a way that's easy to und…

My experiences during my first job at an investment bank were very similar to with what you described. I was surprised by how high the turnover was, but also by how easily it was t…

Thank you for the links, they were very informative. I also found the article a bit cursory. I was particularly surprised that they didn't mention Japan's construction industry. It…

It becomes prohibitively expensive to own cars for a long time here in Japan because the government mandates regular inspections, which can cost up to $1000 USD. The period of vali…

This is an interesting post discussing the evolution of a game project.

The decision not to manage "nicknames" (通称名) under the new immigration law because they aren't necessary from an administrative standpoint is illustrative of the disconnect between…

Anyone who lives in Japan can register a legal alias, regardless of their citizenship. The special permanent residents that you mentioned (who typically hold North / South Korean o…

Thank you for this! I've heard similar things from a friend who is knowledgeable about wine. Enjoying good wine seems similar to enjoying good coffee or beer; price is more of a re…

Another good book on North Korea is B.R. Myers' "The Cleanest Race." While it's not focused on history or defectors specifically, it does offer unique insight on the formation of t…

Thanks, I just picked up a copy.

This is a fun visualization, but as you mentioned it's inaccurate precisely when you need it most (when there's a delay). Actually, some JR stations in Osaka already have an indica…

For frequent trains like like loop lines and subways in major cities, you can generally expect them to arrive when scheduled. These arrive every few minutes, so anything longer tha…

Wow, nice to see this sort of thing in the Kansai area! I'm keen to meet some other HNers so I'll be there.

Having worked with a lot of Japanese programmers, this rings true, but I think it says more about how Japanese companies are run than anything else. There are a couple of interrela…

FST's are used a lot in natural language processing, for example in speech recognition and dialogue systems. In these cases the state transitions are given probabilities (weights),…

One cellular phone company in Japan used to allow people to register e-mail addresses with two periods in a row before the @ character. I have seen some addresses like this in the …

I found this to be a good overview of the Ph.D. system from a CS perspective. I'm doing grad school in a slightly different field, but a lot of the advice was applicable. http://ww…

I've had a similar experience. The Kindle gets the job done, but I find myself using my iPad (or even iPhone) to read Kindle content most of the time now.

I'd be interested in something like this as well. I'm living in Osaka right now but usually end up going to Tokyo a few times a year anyway.