No mater where you originally came from, we fight together for you

This post's title is from the lyrics of a song in Māori language (Te Reo) by Stan Walker, "Aotearoa", celebrating the New Zealand indigenous language week (Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori) 2014 which was last week.

"Ahakoa nō hea mai koe, ka whawhai tonu mātou mōu"

My heart goes to all those who are hoping to contribute to, but struggling to settle in this beautiful country, Aotearoa, New Zealand.

No music, no life

Many people like to listen to music. No TV shows or movies will complete without music. Even sports games which would be great excitement of their own, incorporate recorded and even live musics to add even more fun. "No music, no life" is well said as without it our life will be tasteless.

However, how many people feel urge to play music themselves? I have no ideas. What I know is I am feeling it more than ever in my decades of mingling with musical instruments which has now a confusing name, keyboard.

When I started playing a keyboard, general public have no access to any alphabetical keyboards connected to computers. Even for professionals, punched cards are the normal medium for data entry. Decades later, virtually no musical keyboards are without being connected or equipped with some kinds of computers nowadays.

Even better, now heaps of synthesisers are available as applications and plugins. They would have costed fortunes for each a quarter century ago. There never has been a better time for keyboard players. Make some noises and have fun!

Long Time No See

I always carry a camera with me. Not just a build-in camera of a mobile phone, but one of my classic purpose build cameras. It is often a digital SLR. Sometime it is a film SLR operates completely mechanically.

However, it is rare that I really pull it out and shoot some frames. Today was such a rare opportunity.

While being away from blogging here for months, I had been involved in arguments on social network systems in Japanese language. What intrigued me was why people in Japan are so busy in self-justification rather than recognising problem and sharing experience by inviting impartial discussions including views from outside.

Then the rainbow reminded me of another field I had been missing.

So, long time no see. Let's have some good time together.

Expect the unexpected

Recent two incidents in the world news made me aware of how little we know about the things especially how much we know about them. At least, as far as I am concerned.

I had no doubt about the biological breakthrough featured in the Nature magazine. I had never imagined that a large passenger jet could fly for several hours completely unnoticed.

This universe would not be clockwork, but more like dominos with countless paths are crisscrossing everywhere. Some pieces will miss the next ones and fail to relay but others will fall down themselves and start sequences unpredicted.

Let's put some pieces forward, anyway.

Don't mess with data, get down to earth

When I had started tinkering around personal computers more than three decades ago, those machines were viewed from ordinary people like oracles. Once I created a programme which produced output like this:


SUBJECT NAME 1 (FEMALE): JANE GREEN
SUBJECT NAME 2 (MALE): JONE SMITH

PROCESSING: ............................................................................ DONE

MATCHING INDEX: 89 OUT OF 100


The algorithm was quite shabby - just some kind of hash value calculator on the name strings but it was surprisingly persuasive to some of my friends.


I really amazed by recent news stories, such tricks - although by far sophisticated and I believe many of them have come from honest professional enthusiasms, basically along the same principle in the essence - have huge influences and implications.

However data acquisition and processing technologies might advance, they would not mean a thing without being supported by hard facts, which sometimes might be hard to swallow, too.

Don't mess with data, get down to earth.

(Never) Lost in translations

I have been translating technical documents for more than two decades. I have been living almost seven years in a country where virtually no one speaks my own language outside my house. Also I am learning three new languages and enjoying it very much. I am not a perfect speaker in any of those languages. But what matters? No one is perfect anyway.

Rather I have lots of fun from all of them. It is fascinating that there are always new things to learn when you are dealing with a language even if it is your mother tongue. Actually I think I might be shy the most in my own language as I feel making mistake is less permissible when using it.

However, it looks like my fellow country people would think quite opposite. They are afraid of making grammatical errors, missing meanings of what they hear and pronouncing in a poor manner in speaking other languages. To err is human. No mistakes, no learning. As a result, I see people from countries around the world here but except one, where I came from.

It is a shame that the concept of expatriate itself carries unwelcome connotations there. I would like to urge the fellow people that your personality would never be lost in translations. You are you wherever you are and would be welcome as long as you are human. Being human would not require heaps of words. Especially in a country like here.

Keep Calm and Carry On

The year 2014 already has seen heaps of extraordinary new stories. Many of them challenged our old perceptions of the world and invited new perspectives to the reality. For example, just several years ago, main stream media excitedly reported reduced snow falls and melting ices and they even argued that white Christmas (of course in the northern hemisphere) would soon become things of past because of global warming. Alas, suddenly the weather daemon apparently has changed its mind and extreme ice and show conditions causing havoc in electricity and transport all over the world.

In biomedical science, it was the discovery of the stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) cells. The idea of the induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells which proved that mature cells can be reprogrammed to gain the ability to turn into any type of cells had been innovative enough to earn the Nobel Prize but  STAP cells went even further. The notion that just dipping cells into an acid bath can transform them into stem cells was too extraordinary to believe or even to take seriously, and actually it was rejected by the science journal Nature multiple times.

Although it does not imply that all "too good to be true" stories should be treated with respect, there should be plenty of fascinating but unexpected discoveries waiting for us. There are still heaps of stones left unturned in the universe. By no means the science was already settled and well-known. I have got a feeling that the year 2014 would be a great year of scientific discoveries and technological innovations.

I am concerned that Japanese media has been relating the discovery of the STAP cells to the personal traits of Dr Haruko Obokata who made it. For me, they are looking for the golden formula of the Nobel Prize Winner as it can be reproduced by parents in growing their own children. Such a delusion is contrary to the fact revealed by the discovery of the STAP cells itself. We still know nothing about the nature.

Just Keep Calm and Carry On.