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The meaning of ``Get together'': Part 3

I like to make a quiz like in the last article. But some of my friends said to me ``Many can live without knowing such things.'' That would be true. I even thought that it is natural that many people don't care about that. But recently I found some people deceive others by using this kind of wrong math. I feel sad when the honest people were deceived. Especially when I read a newspaper article that someone used this kind of wrong logic and stole some money from people. I think it may be good to know these kind of things not to be deceived by malicious people. The problem here is actually not exactly a mathematical problem, it is rather a language problem. If you understand the meaning of the problem, actually this is not so much math in there. Since the question is described in a language (originally in Japanese, here in English. I found it is interesting this worked for both languages), we need to understand what the problem means. Here we need to know what is the '

The meaning of ``Get together'': Part 2

A while ago, I taught mathematics to a thirteen years old boy. His family moved to another city, so we could not have more sessions, but I liked to teach him. In the last session, we discussed about addition of fractions. If we get a half cake (\(\frac{1}{2}\)) and a half cake (\(\frac{1}{2}\)) together, \begin{eqnarray*}  \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{2} = \frac{1+1}{2} = \frac{2}{2} = 1, \end{eqnarray*} it becomes 1. If we add fractions with like denominators, we only add numerators. We discussed why we did in this way and what this meant. Then I told him a story. The boy's favorite soccer player tried to shoot the goal twice in a game, and he succeeded once. His goal ratio of this game is \(\frac{1}{2}\). (Two shoots, one goal) The next game, again he tried to shoot the goal twice in the game, and again he succeeded once. His goal ratio of the game is again \(\frac{1}{2}\). Let's think about his goal ratio to get two games together. For these two games, he tried four goal

The meaning of ``Get together'': Part 1

Every person thinks by words. Thus words are important for me, too. Especially I need to write programs to realize an idea through the words. We can easily find that one word has sometimes a few meanings. People make a joke from it. I think one word has a few meaning is quite natural. For instance, ``run'' has a few meaning. I run as I move fast by foot. I can run a shop. A movie is now running at the theater. In English, it has more meanings with a short word (run after, run away, run out, ...), however, you have already seen the ``run'' itself has a few meanings. When we used only one language, we hardly noticed this multiple meaning of a word. However, when we learn foreign languages, we need to notice this through the translation. We can easily see one word usually has more than one translation in a dictionary. When we learn a foreign language, we can usually see the deepness of both our own language and the foreign language. In literature, especially in poems, us

Frontline Volunteer

My closest person offered him a volunteer to fight Ebola. He is just a programmer and neither a doctor nor a nurse, so I wonder what he can do for that. However, the frontline people need not only doctors and nurses, but also support people. He found a position of IT, the frontline people will establish a data center for outbreak and information hub. I asked him, ``Don't you have a fear to do that?'' He answered me, ``I'm scared.'' The Ebola has a high risk of death, 50 to 90% of death ratio once infected. There is no good medicine for it yet. But he thought, the outbreak must be stopped there and must be stopped still we can. He told me he doesn't have any family, so he just felt that he does it better than someone who has a family does. Although he clearly sees what he should do, still his hand was trembled when he pushed the ``send'' button of the application form. For one week just after he sent the form, he continue to think about what he

Gap time volunteer: Lunch break volunteer version

I call a fraction time ``Gap time''. A gap time is for instance, a time I am waiting for my next train, a time I am waiting for someone at a cafe, my commute time, and so on. Everyday I have some fraction time that I need to wait something a bit. I have a volunteer work for translating education materials. I often use this ``gap time'' for it. I'm a lazy person, therefore I could hardly find some amount of continuous time for my volunteer work. I believe if I work hard, I cannot continue it. Thus my strategy is ``don't work hard, do just small amount only, but continue everyday for long time.'' I translate Khan Academy  learning materials and its site to Japanese and German. I could translate English to Japanese alone, but I need some help for German translation. I ask to help for this at the lunch break gap time. When I and my colleagues go to lunch, I ask someone to proofread my translation while we are waiting for our coffee. This is a lunch break

A solution of a kernel panic Debian 7.6 + NVidia GTX 770 at the boot time.

One of my friend had a problem with Debian 7.6 + NVidia GTX 770. When he booted the machine with the graphics card, the kernel panics at very early stage of the boot. The reason is that the nouveau driver seems not supported this GPU. So the solution is black listing the nouveau driver. If you install the NVIDIA driver, /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-blacklists-nouveau.conf does the job. Therefore, before installing the card (hardware), installing the NVIDIA driver is a solution.

The day Japan doesn't keep their own constitution.

2014, July 1 will be remembered as the darkest day in the history of Japan's constitutionalism because of the Abe Cabinet's approval to change the government interpretation of the supreme law to allow for the exercise of the right to collective self-defense. (cited from Asahi Shinbun, http://www.asahi.com/english/articles/AJ201407020044.html )

Next machine translator

Thanks to Daniel, Jörg, Pascal, and Shinosuke. The followings are copy-and-paste-able text. (Added 2014-6016) US English: Please jump from here. Then you will be a hero! UK English: For Queen and Country, please jump here! French: Sautez, de charmantes demoiselles vous attendent en bas! German: Achtung! Jetzt springen! Stehenbleiben verboten! Japanese: ここから飛び降りましょう.皆さんそうしてらっしゃいます! (On the notice board: B!Tufsfpuzqf!usbotmbups/!Ubuflbxb!Tijoptvlf!upme!bcpvu!tufsfpuzqft/Uibu!xbt!pomz!qfpqmf(t!tufsfpuzqf/!Cvu!J!xpoefs!jg!b!usbotmbujpo!qsphsbn!dbo!vtf!uif!tufsfpuzqf/)

Mad world dance in Berlin

I saw a dance in front of the Brandenburger Tor yesterday. I was surprised that a dance has such expression ability. So many things I don't know yet. Mad world dance in Berlin (2014.3.8) In the main part of the dance, without so much explanations, I can see (or it may just my misunderstandings) the Olympic athletes swim to the Fukushima daiichi led by the prime minister Shinzo Abe who declared "the "The radioactively contaminated water has been completely blocked." Then, Abe did nothing, but to demonstrate the fish safety, he ate the fish near the power plant. and so on. My favorite part of this dance is the ending comment. Many can do satire and say, "oh bad... What's going on", I think it is important to show what is the problem, though, it's a bit depressing.  But the dancer's last comment was " Let's make a different future because it is possible if we all do something." I think this is a great message for the h

An energy company uses exponential power.

Question  In Rabbit city, Mr Fox generates electricity energy. One day, Mr Fox realized there is no one else generates the energy. So he decided  raise the price every year for 30 years since that year he retire. He met his uncle, who is working for the city hall. Mr Fox said his uncle, ``I would like to raise the price 10 Euro for currently 100 Euro paying rabbit.'' His uncle answered, ``It seems you don't know about economy. You should say, I will raise 10 % every year.'' Which statement of following is correct? Mark all apply. It's same raise when you start 100 Euro and 10 Euro every year and when you start 100 Euro and 10% raise every year. Since 10% of 100 Euro is 10 Euro. Therefore, 30 years later, how much raise the price is 10 * 30 = 300, and plus original price 100 = 400. It becomes 400 Euro after 30 years. Mr. Fox's uncle is correct. 30 years later, 10% every year raise is twice as much as 10 Euro each year's raise. The raised cost is a