俳句館で

茶と琵琶湖一緒太陽と沈まれる

The Closer Shore

If he’d have moved, she’d have known he was awake – at least that was how he gauged the situation. He was just a boy of little consequence to anyone but himself. He couldn’t recall just how he’d arrived in this precarious situation, but he was betting it had something to do with a nagging ambition that always seemed to be pushing him just that much further than he’d have ordinarily preferred. At the moment, he lay on a rice floor, surrounded by rice walls, with an empty bowl and glass of rice just beside him. He wasn’t alone.

The sliding glass doors let in cool air and the heavy scent of spring. The morning was cool, and he could tell she was running a fever – face flushed with color and damp brow. Pushing back the futon, he rose to close the shade to block out the early morning light. Closed, the blue tints of the morning dulled to quiet hues and warmer tones. At the movement, she began to stir; he felt he must go. Leaving as he went, he paused, realizing it was the wrong thing to do. But he was already beyond returning – her sickness had become his.

It was yet early, but the sun, higher than one might have thought, stung his eyes. The wind was strong as he made his way along the breakers. Men were out in their boats trolling but were already picking up and making their way across to the other side. The air was clear, revealing the scenery so often blotted out by smog or moisture. On another day, he might have paused to take it in, but today all he felt was the cold spray from the crashing waves.

Making his way as he did, he thought of a song he’d heard sometime ago – it must have been something lilting, a lullaby perhaps, but the melody escaped him. Turning instead, as he did, to cross the street, he kept his feet moving. To himself he wondered where his concentration had wondered – he’d been somewhere else just the moment before. It had been a cozy room, he hadn’t been lonely, and there had been someone who seemed to have needed him. Just now, thinking on it seemed required an awfully great effort, and so he kept picking up his feet and putting them down again. He was headed for the tracks.

and back to you, Mr. Senator...

A link to the Senate's website is here and a link to the video feed (real) is here.
George Galloway is called before the Committee around time index 01:58:00. Galloway clearly, succinctly and eloquently floors the Senate Commission who have implicated him as being the recipient of oil/money/kickbacks in the Food for Oil Program.
Is this getting much attention back in the States?

[万博] 愛・地球博

so much to see. our first excursion to the Expo occurred this weekend - needless to say, I want to begin working promptly (read: NOW). the color, country, sun and people are all out in full force. they hit me over the brow, one・two・three, don't let me go. vain attempts at wiping away the enthusiasm cease and the meaninglessness of former missteps drown out in the excitement. people make this their lives, and even i forget that my ascent is behind schedule.

can't we all be this sincere in dreaming of visions? each country showcases their best side, and the UN and Red Cross/Crescent pepper the place with reality. enthusiasm is real, though, and this affects change - just be sure to wear your sunscreen.

and the queues, my God the queues! enough for the entire field of management science to indulge their sickest sensibilities. plasma flat-screens bow to Super High-Vision and ol' "i never quite got around to decomposing" Mammoth welcome all visitors with equal flare.

the big Japanese corporations create the biggest stir, and i've got a sneaking suspicion that Toyota paid for it all.

The Poison of the Seas

we walk in shadows cast by the demons harboured by all.

inside the illness eats us,
and a balance between the pain and peace we emanate is struck slowly.
"wishing for the right lights to shine," tolls the dull drone of the city's bell.

stillness washes the shores
littered by the passing of too many feet. the visitors have all gone home now;
but will they take with them the purpose of our monument?
monuments built on ideas and marketed to the general public complete with a color-coded merchandising effort,
the practicing of the preaching gets swept underneath the power-grid.
we present our face in smartly painted Styrofoam and projected across multi-layered screens. the effect is pleasing to the eye.

streamed across infrared light into amulet receivers - information is put aside as not having enough entertainment value. the show begins! a sharp breath is drawn and noisy reality falls quickly out of fashion.

BELIEVE in the future and ACT on prayer.
beautifully arching prayers stave off misinformation as wishing makes wanting true.

The End of the World

the winds of change, my friends, they're a blowin'.

MSFT didn't hire me, so what's the diff?

**UPDATE, UPDATE** it looks as if the Apple of my eye has arrived in Ann Arbor and is loaded on truck for delievery.
*UPDATE* it was a momentous decision (i had to call my dad up just so i'd have someone on the phone) as i clicked the "place purchase" button. expected ship is on or before 4/22.

yeah well, the business world may thumb its nose at me for betraying @risk, crystallball, solvertable, decisiontree, and whatever other contraptions they can think to throw at us... but i'm considering it anyway; and Tiger's (OS 10.4) making it all the more tempting. check out these mad features:
Dashboard
-admittedly, the ripple effect is gratuitous and may have to be turned off. sex sells.
Spotlight
iLife '05
comes with the machine and looks pretty slick as well.

Pearl Kikkoman 万歳！

as i sit here, pondering the many failings of my life, my soul is assuaged by this amazing product.

此花が咲いて

The Grand Vision of Profs. Ahn and Sinha

How will your decision-making ability be affected in the face of uncertainty? How will you know what your course of action should be? These are the primary concerns that Professors Ahn and Sinha aim to address through their shared vision of better living through statistics. The dynamic duo believes that one does not have to be a mathematician to successfully employ logic and statistical rigor in decision-making.

The previous assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Industiral Engineering and Operations Research, Professor Hyun-soo Ahn, relates that his first bout teaching Business Statistics and Operations Management (OMS 301) left him feeling unfulfilled. The semester was spent teaching someone else’s material and students were not receptive.

Eager to dispel the widely held belief among business students that statistics is a dry and boring subject, Professor Ahn joined forces with Professor Amitabh Sinha, arriving at Michigan spring 2004. Together they began to draft their plan of attack for the coming winter 2005 term. Armed with a newly won grant from the National Science Foundation, a Tablet PC, and a dream to improve the teaching of decision-making sciences, the professors were determined to implement a course that students could relate to, independent of their career choice.

Channeling his exuberance for popular culture, movies, music, sports and an assortment of beverages, Professor Ahn collaborates with Professor Sinha to fulfill what they view as an obligation to provide extra value to Michigan students. The lecture notes are designed to be self contained and are kept as up to date as possible; these often feature the likes of Howard Stern “the King of Media,” the cast of Dawson’s Creek, Avril Lavigne, and other pop figures. Special “in-class” boxes denote sections students are to review before coming to class. One BBA, who refused to be named, fondly refers to these as “yellow boxes of dread.” However, the notes are designed with pedagogical concerns in mind and utilize the tablet PC as a means to interact with students as they fill in the notes by hand.

The use of case studies also finds new life under the direction of Professors Ahn and Sinha. Instead of simply letting students “have at it,” guides are constructed to accompany each case. The cases themselves function more as a background for the application of theory. The guides help students to recognize methodologies for analyzing cases and facilitate in-class discussion.

Drawing inspiration from Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, Professor Ahn and Sinha designed a case they call “Chasing Moneyball” to not only address the dearth of hypothesis testing cases, but also to create a real scale problem to which students can relate. Professor Ahn describes how Lewis’ work enlightened him to the fact that people have not been using statistics decision theory correctly: the New York Yankees’ $190 million player budget is largely run by vision and the gut instinct of the ball club’s executives. The objective of the case centers around teaching students how to set the correct hypothesis test and identify what it is that needs to be proved. This is how the “game of statistics” is accurately treated as such.

As an active concert goer, Professor Ahn realizes that even the best show can wear you out if there isn’t an intermission, a place to ground yourself. Adopting a consumer perspective, he makes a conscious effort to structure his lectures into three mini-parts, each interrupted by a story, an anecdote or joke. These breaks serve not only as intermissions to the statistic rock-opera that is OMS 301, but also function as anchor points to aid in students’ absorption of the material.

As a self professed diamond expert, Professor Ahn’s lectures encompass more than mere business situations. Upon relating the four characteristics of a good diamond (carat, cut, clarity, color), Professor Ahn professes that “the love is much more important than diamonds.” Professor Ahn then went on to perform a two-tail t-test to determine whether or not a particular jeweler’s diamonds were close to ideal. After which he pontificated on the genius of hiring a wedding planner, albeit one not as attractive as J. Lo, to do his own wedding.

Take it. Live it. Learn it.