Merry Christmas to my family, friends, and any visitors to this blog who remain persistent enough to check in occasionally and see whether I've made another of my increasingly rare posts.
I haven't entirely abandoned the blog, but I have become quite busy with numerous other things, and have had insufficient motivation for a while now. That might change in the coming year, but I'm not much on making New Year resolutions.
In any case, whether you celebrate Christmas or some other holiday, may the season be a joyful one for you, and may next year bring much happiness to us all.
Friday evening, and I just learned of the passing of Leonard Cohen, a great poet and songwriter (and singer, in my opinion, at least).
Rather unusually for me these days, after getting in after midnight last night...well, this morning, actually... following a late session at a yakitori place, I decided to listen to/watch some old rock and blues performances on YouTube. After succumbing many times to the temptation of "just one more" link to Clapton, or Knopfler, or Beck, or many others, while sipping more whisky than was entirely wise on a weekday, I finally gave in as it started getting light outside.
Turning in at six and getting up at eight is not as easily done since I became middle aged: these reminders that I'm not 18 anymore are truly annoying. Nevertheless, it seemed fitting to end the session with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and then Closing Time, and a silent toast to Mr. Cohen with the last of the whisky before going to sleep.
I didn't know 12 hours ago that it was a "goodbye" toast as well as the usual "thank you for the pleasure you've provided me, and the thoughts you've provoked, over the years" toast.
I am extremely disappointed to see what my fellow American citizens--a sufficient number of them, anyway--have seen fit to elect as their president. I hope that my expectations of even darker days for the United States and for the rest of the world are overly pessimistic, so for once I am eager to be proved wrong. I am not at all sanguine, however.
As of today I've been working for a year at my regular editing job with Honda Staffing Services.
The job is basically every weekday afternoon, and so far it has been a good one. The work itself is interesting, the office is quiet, comfortable, and conveniently located, and my colleagues are all friendly and helpful.
Thus it was good news when, after our return from the Golden Week holidays, the boss took me aside and informed me that I can expect a new one-year contract soon. Apparently they're as satisfied with me as I am with them.
I continue to do freelance work of various kinds, but it's nice to have a regular, reliable source of work (and income). I'm looking forward to the next year, and probably several years thereafter.
Time flies, though: it certainly doesn't feel as if an entire year has gone by since I started working at Honda.
The typhoon that blew through Japan south and west of Kanto seems to have taken the last of the rainy season with it. It has been hot and humid, as one expects from summer weather here, and the local disaster prevention sections of the city offices have returned to broadcasting warnings about avoiding heat stroke.
A couple of weeks ago, though, the rainy season was still with us, and was complicated by interactions with a couple of typhoons. My part of Kanto managed to escape most of the really dangerous downpours that caused flooding and landslide damage elsewhere, but there were plenty of days with very robust rainfall and terrible visibility for drivers.
Just before dawn on one of those days, when it was light but the sun hadn't quite risen, I was driving to work, paying my usual careful attention to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians around me. One older guy on a motor scooter almost escaped my vigilant eye, though, as he came up to--illegally--pass me in the narrow space left in the lane between my car and the curb. That's not unusual by any means, but I usually see them coming earlier. This guy was on a gray bike, wearing full rain gear, including the hood of his parka pulled over his helmet.
It was raining pretty hard, and as I've done a lot of motorcycle and scooter riding in wet weather, I certainly applaud his decision to dress for the weather. Choosing rain gear in a shades-of-gray urban camouflage pattern, and riding his gray bike, though, may not have been the wisest course unless he actually wanted to be nearly invisible.
A magnitude 8.5, Shindo 5+ earthquake this evening with an epicenter in Ogasawara was strong enough (Shindo 4 to 5-) in northern Saitama to motivate me to gather my passport and wallet, and prepare to grab my emergency kit if needed. It was fairly long, too, allowing plenty of time for reflection.
That wouldn't ordinarily be remarkable in quake-prone Japan, except that Ogasawara is over 1000 kilometers from here.
Coming after a quake early this morning, and after some other quakes--including one with an epicenter about 20 kilometers from here--and volcanic eruptions lately, I'm a bit concerned that there may be a much more substantial and damaging one on its way.
I haven't forgotten the 3/11 disaster, and even this San Francisco native and long-time Japan resident finds his equanimity slipping a bit.
A friend sent me a link to an article
about attempts to prevent owners from repairing or modifying their vehicles. With the increased prevalence of computerized, software-controlled functions in automobiles, the issue is whether intellectual property protection laws can or should be used to prevent people from modifying, repairing, and tuning their own cars.
Manufacturers are taking the position that allowing people to access and change car systems is potentially risky. Their motivations are varied, and some of their stated reasons seem ingenuous to me, but there is little doubt that the car companies are seeking to protect their R&D investment with copyrights, in the face of recent patent "erosion". Obviously, there are other financial considerations, too, both because of possible liability issues and because of possible loss of repair revenue.
Gearhead owners point to improvements made by "civilians", to hacking issues that have been poorly addressed if at all by manufacturers, and to some high-profile cases in which the manufacturers demonstrably did not know better, and failed to see or to deal with critical safety issues.
By coincidence, I later came across the most recent of several articles I've seen lately about self-driving cars. Ray Kurzweil of Google predicts that autonomous cars controlled by AI are coming, and says, "The technology works. It's not far away."
Three weeks ago, Nissan's Carlos Ghosn was saying that they want to put self-driving cars on Japan's roads next year, and have them autonomously navigating urban roads by 2020. I would hope that the technology is more reliable than that of the considerably simpler airbag inflators: the news a few days ago said that Nissan has added 45,000 small cars to a previous recall, apparently in response to a Louisiana woman being injured by flying shrapnel from an exploding air bag.
On the other hand, there are many people in Japan--particularly the elderly in remote areas with insufficient public transportation and few options for finding other drivers--who would benefit greatly by being able to go by self-driving car to shops, hospitals, or community centers.
Nevertheless, I see more potential problems than benefits.
I've been driving for a long time, and I enjoy it, a lot. I would be reluctant to relinquish control of my vehicle to an artificial intelligence for that reason. Not, however, only for that reason. I've also been using computers for a long time, and interacting with AI in its various forms as it slowly has progressed. Whether manifested as simple algorithms for predicting words in a text message, or somewhat more sophisticated ones controlling enemies and passersby in video games, I can't say that AI has reached--or even approached--the point at which I'd want to trust it with my life, driving my car.
Every time I think of the possible consequences of a self-driven (i.e., AI/computer-driven) car, I remember how many times over the years that my computers have shown me the infamous BSOD, and reflect that if the car system failed, the "fatal" part of "fatal system error" could apply to me.
Whether control over maintenance and tuning, or control over the driving of the vehicle, I'm very dubious about it. It reminds me of the ominous introduction to The Outer Limits, a long time ago.
From San Francisco CA originally, I'm a long-term resident of Japan with interests in motorcycles, good booze, good food, books, computers, and too many other things--both indoor and outdoor--to mention, even if discretion weren't indicated for some of them.
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