I have a new theory.

In this world, we should try to find the right balance in everything. That is, in society, in law, in technology, our overriding goal should be just to prevent our systems from breaking unrecoverably (e.g. everyone dying).

Evolution guides all these processes, and everything else too, it seems. So as the ideologues battle, I'm going to try to keep a bit of perspective. I'll try to remember that theories and ideologies are merely forces nudging the evolution of our systems, and can never be entirely self-coherent. They are only coherent inasmuch as they recognize they would fail if implemented in toto, and that they are only one part of a much bigger, much slower process.

Well, maybe it's not really new. Maybe it's just the Dao.

I used to live right near Komazawa Park in Tokyo... Seeing this picture on Joichi Ito's blog reminded me all about those times in my life.

The park was built for the Olympics held in Tokyo years ago (in the 60's I think). Actually, I lived closer to Toritsu Daigaku station, but we often walked or rode our bikes up to Komazawa. I used to drive my RC car all around the little jogging path through the park.

I always thought the coolest thing I had ever seen was a concrete tower in the middle of the park with a moat around it, and little pillars coming up from the water to serve as stepping stones across the moat. It was always blocked off for some reason, but my friends and I always rode our bikes around there. It felt like a semi-deserted concrete ghost town... A magically dull and sullen Stalin-inspired post-apocalyptic future city... I would love to see a picture of that tower again. ;)

What is your favorite type of coffee?

I have different favorites for different purposes and occasions. When I'm driving a long way, I need to get Dunkin' Donuts coffee, and some donuts. They have extremely good coffee. The cups rock too, since they stay in the cup holders well, keep in the heat, and have enough structure to prevent buckling and spilling. :) They also use the really nice plastic tops that you can open and re-close...

When I'm playing Go, or talking with friends at a cafe, I get a latté or cappuccino... But when I'm just people-watching, or reading or hanging out, sometimes I like to get an espresso doppio machiatto, which is a double espresso with a bit of foam. That's for my coffee connoisseur mood. <grin>

But I have to get these in a porcelain mug or cup, unless it's to go. They just taste so much better that way. I think it's because of a couple of things -- the mug is slippery while the paper cup sticks to your lip, and sipping from the mug allows air in, while sipping from a paper cup with the lid doesn't.
This means there is a nicer texture and aroma from the mug.

Unfortunately, a lot of Starbucks Baristas balk when I ask them for my drink "for here," since they don't want to have to wash it when they close... Tough, I say! Gimme my mug, since I'm paying 2 bucks for an ounce of coffee... ;)

Funny enough, once I was in Tokyo, and typically, a certain café offered lattés but not cappuccinos. I looked behind the counter, and saw a totally automated machine with a button labelled "cappuccino." So I asked the girl if she would make it for me, and she wouldn't, saying that they weren't allowed to make anything not on the menu! Agggh...

Yesterday was our 3 year wedding anniversary! Unfortunately we weren't together this time, but at least we had Valentine's day together... I'll be back in DC this weekend so at least I'll get to see my girl again. :)

I've known Yuki since 1995, when we met during my sophomore year at CMU, under humorous circumstances I'll describe another time ;) We got married in March of 2000, but it feels like we've been together forever.

A toast to my beautiful, funny, loving, cute, adorable, incredible wife Yuki! I love you more than anything in the world. May we become cute old fogies together, and never stop having fun.

最近、中国が強くなっているにつれて、日本が弱くなっている事実が明らかになって来た。中国の経済にも政治体制にも問題は少なくないが、将来の中国は偉大な国となる兆しは明確だ。

それに、日本の現代文化はピッタリと中米交流に重大な役割を果たす可能性もあるでしょう。中米間にいわゆる　「天の浮橋」　の様な立場に立っているのではないか。アメリカのビジネス方法にも詳しく、中国人が違和感を感じない漢字の多い国でもある。おおざっぱに言えば、西洋とアジアの文化が混ざった国になって来たと思う。

このユニークな地位を生かせる者は日本にいるかどうか分からないのだが、日本の得点を深く考慮して賢く利用するのが必要ではないか。

十二月十一日は俺のお誕生日だった。今回は廿七歳、と言う不思議な歳をむかえた。何が不思議かと言うと、最近は色々なことに対して考え方が変わってきている。

先ず、一つは子供の事。Denver で親しくなった友達の coder、Chris Saam の妻は十日前に穏やかな赤ちゃんを生んだ。Chris は俺より６年ぐらい年上だとしても、友人の内の初めての子供だからこそ革命的なイベント。俺も彼の妻が妊婦して以来、驚くほど子供の事が頭に浮かんできている。特に新たな人間に特別な知識と世界観を与えるチャンスとして見れば、すごい魅力を感じるでしょう。勿論、面倒くさい点も多いのだが、やはり今の歳になると其の価値が少しずつ浮き彫りになってくる。

大学を出て数年、数多くの友達が日常生活から振り向いて、もう一度と歩むべき道を確かめているらしい。そして、仕事も分野も家族も変わって来るかも知れない。うまく言えないんだけど、どうしてか変化の多い時期だな。

俺にとって、子供はまだまだ早いんだけど、いつの間にか欲しくなって、又も自分の心の変化に驚かされるだろう。まッ、曖昧な post だけど、こういうのも偶に blog に不可欠だな。;)

This weekend I happened to go check out a Japanese bookstore and pick up some calligraphy gear. I love calligraphy — it has a life to it that really reminds you how much meaning is in the information we write down...

Periodically I'm reminded in these moments of a theory I have about human society, intelligence, tools, and their interaction.

Fundamentally as we know from our experience with computers, there are three important elements to processing information: processing power, information storage (memory), and communication (protocols). Each of these requires hardware to implement it, and organization or software to keep it running correctly, and working together with the other components.

We can view the human race and it's leaps forward in these terms as well. The advent of human intelligence was a revolution in processing power. This allowed us to figure out many new things, but there were of course limits. Our discovery of language was a second revolution, this time of communication, allowing us to pool our processing power to achieve even more than before. It also effectively increased our memory because we could share information stored in the memories of various people.

Writing was really the third major revolution in our history, as it vastly increased our capacity for information storage and recall, or our collective memory. Various innovations in filing, printing, etc, served to further increase the utility of this information storage system.

Now, computers are allowing us to simultaneously stretch all three of these capabilities. Currently, processing power is increasing steadily, but we are really experiencing revolutionary new capabilities due to vast increases in our memory and communication capacities. Hard drives of 100 Gigs and more will soon allow us to carry with us vast libraries of not only documents and music, but video. Important communication hubs are forming in the great cities of the world, wherein anyone can stop in at a café and communicate with people all over the planet. And the pipes continue to get fatter to accomodate our huge hard-drives.

But really, why is all this revolutionary? Because it allows us to process vastly more information than we ever could do alone. It allows us to recall and use vastly more information than we ever could do alone... In fact, I believe that the faster we get used to the idea that our human capacities are limited, that we must depend on computers to reach our full potential, the better we will be prepared for the future. Our ability to manipulate massive stores of information effectively is becoming much much more important than what we know, or can do, as an individual.

These are all reasons why I believe there is an ancillary social revolution in the works. When people finally begin to realize what I'm talking about here, there will be a massive change in the way we approach education. Rather than teaching a wide variety of facts, trying to create well-rounded individuals, we will finally realize that we should just give students the tools they need to do this themselves, saving them years of off-topic memorization, and then move on to specifics quickly. We may also allow them to return to school to change fields later, without stigma or unnecessary difficulty.

Hmmm. ;)

I was thinking today about how interesting it would be to read someone's blog back to the '20s or '30s, if they had existed at the time... The obvious follow-up question is "How many of today's blogs will still be around in 40 or 50 years?"

It's an intriguing question. How many really have the tenacity to write regularly about their comings and goings for their entire life? The kids who are blogging now will probably give it up when they go to college, maybe when they move somewhere and take their first job... Who knows what percentage of them will take it up again...

All I know is that if people continue these sites, at least some of them will be an incredible trove of introspection for future generations. Imagine being able to read hundreds of differing accounts of September 11, 50 years hence...

The potential of this medium is not only in connecting people in the here and now, but also in documenting the feeling of a particular moment in history, according to individuals... A chorus of unique voices that will inevitably convey something much more nuanced than AP or Reuters ever could.

I remember when my Grandfather was in his last days. My mother set up the video camera, brought me into the sunroom of my grandparents' house, and told me to ask him about what his life was like... What was life like during the infamous great depression, which he had lived through, seen with his own eyes? He talked about a number of things that had struck him, especially about helping the many homeless migrants get by, even while he was struggling to make ends meet.

The more voices we can save for posterity, the better. The human stories that we can tell are what bring meaning to our lives — not technology or science, or even progress. Let's not waste the opportunity we've been given, to pass on some of the meaning we find in our lives. Let's embrace it.

I've been thinking a lot about blogging recently, since I started this project a couple of months ago. A story on Joichi Ito's blog gave me a lot of food for thought recently, as well. (BTW, he also went to Nishimachi ;)...

I have begun to want to blog everything cool that I see in my life, and I don't have nearly enough time to do it. I can't imagine how all these bloggers out there of working age manage to find the time to post stuff every day... I guess a lot of it is not that interesting, but it still takes time...

My plan is basically to get this blog working the way I want it before I start law school next year, so I'll be able to write about all the issues I encounter. It should be pretty interesting... I just hope that I can manage to get on the Uberman's sleep schedule prior to law school. Having 4 extra hours each day would seriously ameliorate my need for time to fuel my obsessions... :)

It's amazing. I lived in Japan during the peak years of the so-called 'Bubble Economy', from '86 to '89. I came to believe during that time that many aspects of Japanese culture and philosophy were superior to those in the U.S. I wasn't necessarily wrong, but I didn't see the whole picture either. Busy being assimilated by the economic juggernaut, I hadn't noticed the fact that America had superiority where it really counts — in its political and cultural system.

A recent story in the New York Times is titled "As Tokyo Loses Luster, Foreign Media Move On." A couple of choice excerpts:

In the last few months, newspapers closing their Tokyo bureaus included The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The Independent of London, Dagens Nyheter of Sweden and Corriere della Sera of Italy.

Given the choice between covering a stalled Japan and a developing China that will probably overtake Japan economically by the middle of the century, editors choose the more dynamic country.

An even harsher note is struck in this opinion article from the same paper:

Japan is returning to its rightful place in the world, that of a middling country of vastly diminished and still declining importance in world affairs.

Welp, a blast from the past. I got in touch with Maya Ravindranath, back from years in the jungles of Belize... Hopefully, I'll be able to get in touch with Tetsu and Taro and some of the other guys we knew back in Nishimachi... hehe... Too bad I lost touch with them before, but such are the mistakes of youth... ;) I noticed that a bunch of Nishimachi people have blogs now. Mostly from the class of '94, my sister Ainsley's class... It would be cool to get together with all the people in NYC and DC... I think there are a bunch now. :)

Friday, we had a pretty interesting night. Started out great, had a big challenge, and ended up 'ok' but not stupendous... We went to the Freer Gallery to see a film called "Twelve Nights", part of their annual Hong-Kong film festival. It was pretty cool... A funny story about a typically neurotic couple in a big Asian city... ;) You should definitely see it if you get a chance.

Afterwards, we went over to Adams Morgan on the subway to hang out. On the subway there were 4 or 5 black kids (13 or 14 years old) screwing around, and acting incredibly obnoxious. They were screaming, laughing, yelling, and one girl was running up and down the car swinging on the bars... It was not an empty car, this being a Friday night, and all the other passengers were pretty angry. So finally, I said to one kid "Why don't you guys just try to chill out a bit, ok?" And guess what? Of course, he starts threatening me. The girl started into some rant about me attempting to "talk black" (apparently because I used the word 'chill'), and they began to make racist comments about me and my wife Yuki (Korean descent).

Unfortunately, Yuki got angry at them too, and said some things that probably made them even more antagonistic, but when we were about to leave the subway, and one kid rudely pushed past my wife to get out, while threatening to smack her, I got pretty angry myself. I got up in his face and repeatedly asked him who he thought he was going to smack.

He was about a head taller than me (I'm 5'10"), and I'm sure he didn't realize I have been practicing various martial arts for 8 years, on and off, but he saw that I was serious and they backed off, resorting to immature insults from a distance.

Regardless of your confidence level, this sort of thing will always give you a shot of adrenaline, and it can be hard to deal with... Yuki was fine after a while, but it was a crummy experience. We agreed that it's sad these kids don't have any discipline. Their minds are so closed that they fail to realize the effect their behavior has on the other passengers. This is Washington, D.C. -- the capital of the U.S. Tourists see this sort of behavior and think that D.C. is dangerous, uncivilized, etc, and these people have no clue that it's because of them. Argh. Not only that, but it gives more than a bit of fuel to racism. A lot of people here would see that and decide that they should just never venture into D.C. The problem isn't that they're black, though -- the problem is that they are poor, uneducated, and undisciplined, and that they often live in an insular culture where these attributes are tolerated if not accepted...

Luckily, we got to Adams Morgan, and after relaxing at an Ethiopian restaurant for a while, began to feel better. We got some drinks at Tryst, and headed home having eaten a bit too much, but it was a good time altogether... :)

For those of you who don't know what this picture is, it's the subway map of Tokyo. I am nursing a serious case of wanting to be back there right now... It comes and goes, but it's back today. Why? I think it's because we're starting to do more stuff here in D.C., and it's reminding me of what a fucking cool city Tokyo is. At least a third of my self is shaped by my life there, and moulded by my connections to Japan... That part never leaves, of course, but vehemently reasserts itself periodically.

I miss the insanely groovy places that exist only there. The cafés that have furniture that's way too expensive, and play wacky jazz, and somehow manage to make money because everyone is willing to pay way too much money for a latte and a place to feel a slightly different vibe that night, while they chill with their friends...

And right now, even though I would usually bitch about it, I actually miss the blade-runner bitterness of superficial friendships you find there. The anonymity of knowing that maybe people are gossipping about you today, maybe someone else tomorrrow, but never so seriously that you should actually care. The mental space that everyone has around them, as a given, can be strangely liberating. To Americans it can seem cold and unfeeling, and it is sometimes... but it also allows you to cool off, just like the gray sky and cool concrete of a Tokyo afternoon in September. Your Black-Black and Oronamin-C are all yours, as you walk along the street, but you know that a pseudo-deep conversation is only a cellfone away... and you could meet in a new café every night in Shibuya if you wanted, and just hang out and feel that slightly different vibe...

Well, we're beginning to make some friends in the Washington area again. :) Yuki and I met a bunch of cool people at a party for the summer associates at Finnegan Henderson, my Dad's firm. One was actually a guy that I was on a swim team with for years when we were little kids... hehe... We also got together with my friend Andy (singer in a band called Virginia Coalition) and his girlfriend Lacey... I've known Andy since preschool, but we still get along swimmingly... hehe. Pretty crazy to see all these people from so long ago, and renew our friendships... It's very nice :)

I'm also getting to know the area. There is a really cool movie theater near Dupont Circle called Visions... There's also a cool theater in Bethesda, etc...

Now, I just have to do all my applications for law school, and help Yuki find an apartment for us... :)

Interesting to note this article about Denver, where I lived for the past 4 years... Growing quickly, it will be a pretty cool place someday, but for now, it's still a little small. ;)

A day like any other... not quite.

Today is different.

Today is the day that I'm finally making a decision about my life. It's grueling making these decisions, because you want to think that every major decision will lead you to the perfect life. I am going to law school, and I am going to become a patent attorney. I don't know that there isn't something else out there that could make me happier, but I do know that this could work, and it could provide me with something satisfying and challenging to do each day. It could be a job where I command a degree of respect, even while laboring as an associate. It could be a job that I really like to do, for a long period of time. I'm hoping that it is. :)