November 2001

Dorami's Got A Brand New Blog | Ties Talk Update | Tough Times in Nikkei Hockey | Film: Peck's Lumumba | Wonderful Words | Living Autopsy | 'Spos It's For The Better | Keiko in No Whale's Land | Medical Informatics in Japan | Remembrance Day / Veterans Day | Takabe's Temagami Trip | Information Architecture / Information Design | Name That Tune | Leapin' Leonids | "Japanese Coins" Tweak | Turkey Coma? / Buy Nothing Day | Obon Q and A Update | Nikkei Nexus Update | His Brain, Her Brain | SoCal Nikkei Hockey Workshop

  • SoCal Nikkei Hockey Workshop
    My hockey e-penpal Terri told me about a hockey workshop put on this past weekend by Los Angeles Kings goaltender Jamie Storr for Japanese American children in Southern California. It was part of the Kings' community relations effort to promote diversity within hockey, and a chance for him to show his connectedness to his Japanese heritage. To get one of the 20 clinic spots, the kids had to name the four Nikkei players currently with NHL organizations, who I listed in an earlier entry this month. To read the writeup, the event was a success. Well done!

    The most famous and more obviously Nikkei NHL player is Paul Kariya, who has a Japanese surname and still Asian features. Jamie Storr, however, is representative a growing part of the face of the Nikkei community: hapa who show no external evidence of being Japanese, but whose affinity within for their Japanese heritage is strong.

    (27 Nov 2001)
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  • His Brain, Her Brain
    There is an interesting article "The brain is a sex organ" in The Globe and Mail about gender differences in brain anatomy and physiology, which cites the work of Canadian behavioural psychologist Doreen Kimura (née Hobb) and directs readers to a website called His Brain, Her Brain, where they can do some online tests that are meant to demonstrate the ways men and women's brains are different.

    The differences are believed to have arisen due to the distinct work roles the sexes had in prehistoric times, and are thought to result from the brain's hormonal milieu during fetal development and in life outside the womb. Half-jokingly it is speculated that this may partly explain the problems between men and women today. Here is how I scored on the online tests:

    • Perceptual speed: Image matching (women better than men): 8.8 sec (average: 10.04 sec men; 16.1 sec women)
    • Object displacement: Remember a missing object (women better than men): 7.2 sec (51.5 sec men; 77.6 sec women)
    • Mathematical calculation: (women faster than men): 13.7 (41.5 sec men; 33.1 sec women)
    • Spatial perception: Match 3-D shapes (men better than women): 6.3 sec (14.6 sec men; 11.5 sec women)
    • Disembedding ability: Find a simple figure within a more complex one: (men better than women): 16.0 (17.9 sec men; 20.8 sec women)
    • Mathematical reasoning: Word problems (men better than women): 31.4 sec (80.2 sec men; 89.9 sec women)

    How are my results to be interpreted? The investigators point out that the composite gender profiles come from studies of large groups, but the abilities of individual men and women overlap and vary widely.

    (26 Nov 2001)
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  • Nikkei Nexus Update
    There is an update at Nikkei Nexus.

    (25 Nov 2001)
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  • Obon Q and A Update
    I have posted answers to some recent questions visitors to About Obon have asked me on the Obon Q and A page.

    (24 Nov 2001)
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  • Turkey Coma?
    This Thanksgiving Dorami-chan and I drove up to Seattle to visit my sister and "Bill". Though we usually help with some of the preparation, Thanksgiving dinner is very much "Bill"'s show, with a menu of dishes that have long been served in his family. Much as "Bill" is a traditionalist, he is open to experimentation, either by choice -- he tried brining the turkey this year --- or by necessity -- somehow the slow-cooked Pennsylvania corn got forgotten, but could be served thanks to microwave oven technology.

    After the delicious turkey dinner, I fell into a state that is popularly known as "turkey coma". Sleepiness after the traditional Thanksgiving meal is attributed by many to L-tryptophan, an amino acid found in turkey protein, which is a precursor of serotonin. Both serotonin and L-tryptophan have a calming, sedative effect on the brain. But L-tryptophan is found in many other kinds of meat, and postprandial sleepiness has been reported after any kind of solid meal. Whatever the cause, the effect is reproducible -- the same thing happened after eating the leftovers we were sent home with the next day.

    Buy Nothing Day
    The day after Thanksgiving is typically the busiest shopping day of the year in America, when retailers go into full holiday advertising mode. Since the early 1990s, it has also been International Buy Nothing Day, an anticonsumerism campaign started by Canadian (via Estonia and Japan) Kalle Lasn. His organization Adbusters seeks to increase public awareness of "affluenza," the spiritual and environmental ills brought on by the "buy-illogical urge" of American-style overconsumption. Though Americans comprise just 5% of the world's population, they consume 30% of the world's resources. A person in the U.S. causes 100 times more damage to the global environment than a person in a poor country.

    In the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans have been encouraged to keep the economy afloat by increasing their personal spending, but one wonders if there can't be some alternative to frenzied consumption that can keep people employed, happy and healthy, and minimize environmental impact.

    (23 Nov 2001)
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  • "Japanese Coins" Tweak
    I have tweaked my page About Japanese Coins, altering the design slightly and adding a bit of new content, including images of the new 500-yen coin. There are also several questions about coins, Japanese and non-Japanese, on my Japanese Coins Discussion Board. Hopefully somebody has the answers that I don't!

    (21 Nov 2001)
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  • Leapin' Leonids
    Clear skies are rare in Portland during the fall and winter, but the clouds stayed away long enough this weekend to allow us to see the Leonid meteors. The West Coast show was apparently not as spectacular as that in the East, but the shooting stars were frequent enough that we got to see about ten in ten minutes and make some wishes before Dorami-chan felt cold and wanted to go back indoors.

    The Leonids are space debris burning up in the Earth's atmosphere as our planet crosses the path left by the comet Tempel-Tuttle. Though Russia is a space power, the Leonids are not named after a famous Russian astronomer or a former leader of the Soviet Union. "Leonid" means that the meteors appear to be coming from the direction of the constellation Leo (The Lion).

    (18 Nov 2001)
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  • Name That Tune
    I have been thinking lately about the informatics challenge of information retrieval for digital images and music. Most of the data on the Internet is text, and retrieval of it consists largely of matching the string of characters in the search term against entries in a database -- fairly simple, from a computer programming standpoint.

    In searching for images or tunes, most retrieval mechanisms search on the basis of textual descriptive data (metadata), such as the title, artist, or subject matter or lyrics. At a site like LyricsWorld.com, you can search for a full phrase or one or many words from a song. You can search on the basis of misheard lyrics at KissThisGuy.com, a site named for a misheard line from a Jimi Hendrix song ("Kiss the sky"). They list this entry for Canada's national anthem, O Canada:

    Actual: Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee...

    Misheard: Oh Canada, we stand on cars and freeze... (Cute. True?)

    But what if you only know the melody of a song, not the title or composer? It turns out computer-assisted music identification and retrieval has been an area of research for some time. One application of this is Classical Music Search by Ryuichi "Richie" Iwamura of San Diego CA. You enter a search melody note-by-note on an interactive piano keyboard, play it back, then run the search. Try it! I found Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

    What if you can see in your head a painting, but don't know what it is called or who the artist is? Significant work has been done in the area of content-based image retrieval, whereby a search is done on features such as the pixels making up the image, the calculated texture, average color, and color histogram of the image, or the semantic objects that make up the image. A query combining some or all of these with text and keywords results in powerful retrieval.

    Fun Links:

    (16 Nov 2001)
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  • Information Architecture / Information Design
    I find myself gravitating toward information architecture and information design, a part of medical informatics that strives to help people find and understand information they need. (If you have read my rants about poor signage in airports and along Oregon highways, you know this isn't much of a stretch for me.) These activities sound similar, but are subtly distinct.

    (15 Nov 2001)
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  • Takabe's Temagami Trip
    Ottertooth.com, a website dedicated to the wilderness of northern Ontario, currently features a trip report by Ken Takabe, one of the few of my friends who has his own website. This past September, he went to Ishpatina Ridge, the highest point in Ontario.

    The story behind Ottertooth.com is a tale of collaborative construction of a knowledge base. Site creator Brian Back had posted his notes on the history of Camp Keewaydin and Temagami on the Internet, inviting comments from others. People started sending other information and photos, and a website for for North American wilderness canoeists was born. Given his demonstrated passion for northern Ontario, it is interesting to note that the North Bay ON native now lives in Wisconsin.

    • Culture of Collaboration
      Collaboration, suddenly, is cool. But the biggest challenge of getting employees to work together online isn't a technological problem -- it's a cultural and organizational one.

    (12 Nov 2001)
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  • Remembrance Day / Veterans Day
    Today is the anniversary of the Armistice that officially ended the First World War on 11 November 1918, called Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans Day in the United States. During November, Canadians wear poppy pins bought from their local veterans associations as a way of expressing appreciation for the sacrifices made by the dead of that conflict and ones that have followed. This week's issue of Macleans mentions the 250 Japanese Canadians who, turned down by regiments in British Columbia, went to Alberta to join up for the Great War. Many died at the Battle of Vimy Ridge; others came home, only to be sent to internment camps 25 years later, like the character "Mr. Kawashima" played by Robert ITO in The War Between Us.

    (11 Nov 2001)
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  • Medical Informatics in Japan
    The "Tech Know" section of Metropolis (formerly Tokyo Classified) currently features a story about the new University of Tokyo Hospital. My friend and J-MeSH research project collaborator gets a mention, as "ONOGI Yuzo, who works in the computing center," as if he were some techno-serf. He was probably too humble to tell the reporter that he has MD and PhD degrees from the University of Tokyo -- Japan's premier university -- and is an associate professor in their Department of Medical Informatics!

    Just before Onogi-sensei finished his time as a visiting researcher at OHSU-DMIOR last year, I asked for his opinion about whether I should further my informatics studies in Japan. He discouraged me, saying that the field is more advanced in America. But that doesn't appear to be true, at least from from what the article says about this one hospital!

    (10 Nov 2001)
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  • Keiko in No Whale's Land
    The group that has been trying to recreate Free Willy in real life is giving up its attempt to return Keiko, the killer whale star of the movie, to the wild. After three years, he is still unable and/or unwilling to fend for himself in the open seas off Iceland. He will have to remain in captivity there, since his previous home, the Oregon Coast Aquarium has moved on, having converted his former tank into a new display which Dorami-chan and I saw this past summer.

    Keiko was probably captured at the age of about 2 has lived since then, about half of his 50-year life expectancy, in the company of humans, not whales. In Iceland, he has been taken near wild killer whale pods, but has not stayed with them. It is not even clear whether he can "speak" their language. One person with the project is quoted as saying, "Right now, he's just hanging around -- like taking you to Japan and saying 'OK, man, make friends.'" Keiko, as a fellow "accidental North American", I can empathize completely!

    (08 Nov 2001)
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  • 'Spos It's For The Better
    Major League Baseball voted overwhelmingly this week to fold two of its weakest franchises before next season. Although the teams have not been named, they are most likely the Minnesota Twins and the Montréal Expos. MLB is surely vying with the National Hockey League for the title of Most Poorly Run Professional Sports League, plagued by greedy owners, bad management-player relations, and spiralling salaries. As currently operated, MLB is a game for the rich only, which Canada isn't (moneywise, anyway). By voting with their feet, Montreallers have said -- probably rightly -- that they don't want to be a part of such silliness.

    If events unfold as the owners want, 80 players will be looking for work, including Japanese pitchers Tomokazu Ohka and Masato Yoshii. Effects will be felt down the development chain as well -- the Edmonton Trappers are the Triple A farm team of the Twins. But it remains to be seen what the MLB players union has to say about this situation ...

    (07 Nov 2001)
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  • Living Autopsy
    A story out of Seattle WA reports that several healthcare organizations are promoting partial and total body scans as a way of detecting asymptomatic diseases. Proponents believe it is like having an autopsy before you die. Detractors say the health benefit of such examinations is not proven, and that healthcare organizations are preying on the public's need to know as a way of paying for new ultra-fast computer tomography scanners. Insurance companies will not cover these services, so those interested must pay out-of-pocket, anywhere from $550 for a heart scan to $900 for a virtual colonoscopy or whole body scan. This could lead to an increased workload for pathologists, as more lesions are detected, excised, and sent to "the lab" for diagnosis.

    On a similar theme, a study out of UCLA has found that positron emission tomography scans of the brains of people with mild memory lapses and behavioural changes could help lead to the earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer disease, which until now could only be definitively diagnosed by a pathologist examining the brain after death. PET scans cost about $1,500 each, and there still is no proven effective treatment for Alzheimer disease, but earlier diagnosis would give families more time to organize support for difficult times to come.

    (07 Nov 2001)
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  • Wonderful Words
    I discovered an entertaining section of the CBC News website unknown to me until I noticed the large click-through button to it that they had put on their top-level page. Words: Woe and Wonder explains the definitions, etymology, and acceptable usage of English words. When Canada's national broadcaster began publishing text content on the Internet a few years back, it had to take on issues of word usage from which it had been exempt in radio and television, such as whether to capitalize the word "jeep". (Answer: It depends on the context.) Writer Blair Shewchuk addresses these concerns, bringing together interesting facts in an enjoyable way reminiscent of The Globe and Mail columnist Robertson Cochrane, author of The Way We Word and Wordplay: Origins, Meanings, And Usages Of The English Language. I have got this site bookmarked for regular return visits!

    (06 Nov 2001)
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  • Lumumba (France / Belgium / Germany / Haiti 2000; Dir: Raoul Peck) ***
    A dramatization of the brief term of Congo's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who came to power in 1960, when Belgium granted independence to the colony it had held since 1908. It seemed to be democracy in action when a former postal clerk and beer salesman was elected leader of his country. Lumumba envisioned a truly free and united Congo, but his judgement and political savvy were not on par with his idealism. The new nation tumbled into civil strife, and after only two months the U.S.-backed military seized control and established a dictatorship under Colonel Mobutu that lasted until 1997. Lumumba was arrested and executed without a trial.

    Like many historical films, Lumumba just skims the surface of a complex story, but this account makes one want to find out more about the actual events. Director Peck gave the same topic documentary treatment in his 1992 Lumumba: La mort du prophète (Lumumba: The Death of the Prophet) -- maybe he provides more details there. Before doing this role, French actor Eriq Ebouaney apparently knew more about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King than the character he was to portray.

    The film drew a surprisingly large audience at the first matinee at Cinema 21, maybe because tickets are half price ($3). There were scoffs and hoots when the American observer at a Congo government cabinet meeting responds to a request for input with the line, "It is my country's policy not to meddle in the affairs of other democratic nations."

    (04 Nov 2001)
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  • Tough Times in Nikkei Hockey
    This week Gang Green, my team in the Sherwood Ice Arena recreational hockey league, lost its game 8-5, and I was a brutal minus 5 on the night. But misery has company at this early point in the 2001-2002 season.

    The NHL Mighty Ducks of Anaheim got off to a woeful start and Paul Tetsuhiko Kariya had one of the longest goalless streaks of his career. This weekend Hockey Night in Canada's Headliner segment looked into this and gave us a glimpse of the car he drives:

    Meanwhile, little brother Steve Tetsuo Kariya got assigned to the Vancouver Canucks minor league affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, and sounds discouraged about ever being able to crack the parent club's lineup:

    Youngest brother Martin Tetsuya Kariya of the University of Maine Black Bears is putting up almost the same numbers as me thus far.

    In Los Angeles, Jamie Storr won a training camp battle for a spot as the Kings' backup goaltender, but has been riding the pine since then for the most part.

    About the only bright spot in Nikkei hockey at the moment is David Tanabe, who is developing into a cornerstone of the Carolina Hurricanes team, thanks in part to some early guidance from recently retired former Edmonton Oiler great Paul Coffey.

    (04 Nov 2001)
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  • Ties Talk Archive Update
    There are a few new threads posted at the Ties Talk Message Archive.

    (04 Nov 2001)
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  • Dorami's Got A Brand New Blog
    Some of my visitors have said that "What's New?" is their favorite part of this website. An early review of the Runker Room also mentioned this section, but back then there wasn't a name for what happens here: frequently updated charting of personal musings, commentary on current events, all with selected relevant Internet links. Now, a few years later, this type of online activity is much more commonplace, and a term has been coined: blogging, short for "web logging".

    Once the exclusive domain of those with computer programming skills, blogs have exploded in popularity thanks to authoring software that has progressively taken the hassle out of generating the code necessary to display one's writing on the Web. In the past year or so, Blogger has become the leading service for creating blogs, thanks to a great price (free!), and a simple, intuitive interface that automates the whole process of website updating. One person or many can contribute to a blog. Apparently some companies use this technology as their intranet!

    Dorami-chan is always after me to update my website, then when I do, she notices that I haven't talked about everything that happened. "You try writing your own website, then!" I have felt like saying. Now she can -- today marks the debut of Dorami Desu!, the blog where you may find, among other things, Runker Room urabanashi (behind-the-scenes stories).

    (02 Nov 2001)
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