nourishingvoid

25 ms·

1.
by nourishingvoid 6y ago
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 an even greater degree in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrit
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by nourishingvoid 10y ago
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 understand. He's also strongly committed to putting a
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by nourishingvoid 11y ago
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 to get re-hired. It seemed very common to switched to another
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by nourishingvoid 13y ago
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 makes up a much larger part of the economy than i
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by nourishingvoid 13y ago
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 validity for the inspection depends on the type of vehicle, but
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To “swivel”(blog.vitei.com)
11 points by nourishingvoid 13y ago|3 comments
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by nourishingvoid 13y ago
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 the people making these laws in Japan and th
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by nourishingvoid 13y ago
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 or Chinese citizenship) are probably the most common use
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by nourishingvoid 13y ago
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 reflection of the limited markets for specialized styles
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by nourishingvoid 13y ago
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 the North Korean state and the rationale behind its actions.
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by nourishingvoid 14y ago
Thanks, I just picked up a copy.
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by nourishingvoid 14y ago
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 indicator that shows when incoming trains are stopped at the previ
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by nourishingvoid 14y ago
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 than a minute is perceived as a delay. These will be reported a
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by nourishingvoid 14y ago
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.
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by nourishingvoid 15y ago
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 interrelated factors that come together here. Typical Japanese compan
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by nourishingvoid 15y ago
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), which makes it a weighted FST. Sometimes I used FSM's durin
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by nourishingvoid 16y ago
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 wild, but the decision to mark these as valid or not for an
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by nourishingvoid 16y ago
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://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf
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by nourishingvoid 16y ago
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.
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by nourishingvoid 16y ago
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.