You Down with BGP?

Yes We Could've

It has been a sad ten years for the American people and it is shaping up to be a sad ten more.

Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the arrival of the first prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay.  As despicable as it is that the United States government ever operated the facility, the fact that it is still open with 171 prisoners held without trial is a sad testament to the morality (or impotence) of our leaders, our politicians, and our people.

This isn't a simple matter of inheriting a bad legacy from the previous administration.  By passing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, authorizing the arrest and imprisonment without charge or trial of terrorism suspects, Congress recently demonstrated a renewed commitment to the policies that led to the creation of the Guantanamo Bay prison in the first place.

Bon Nouvel An

12 years ago, almost to the day, my wife and I started learning Japanese.  It began when my wife gave me Pimsleur's Japanese 1 for Christmas 2000.  We studied together for the following 8 years, driving to San Francisco almost every Saturday to take lessons at Soko Gakuen, spending every Saturday and Sunday evening watching Japanese programming on KTSF, and most other evenings practicing Kanji and vocabulary flashcards.  It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I was capable of learning another language (as a point of reference: I studied Spanish for 5 years in High School & College and can't say I ever felt competent in Spanish).

Finally, we moved to Japan in October 2007 where we lived for the following 2 and a half years.  That also marked the end of our studies.  During our time in Japan, I spent pretty much all day every day conversing and corresponding in Japanese, so I feel that my reading, speaking, and understanding skills continued to improve, but I stopped learning new vocabulary and stopped hand writing Kanji so I feel like I left Japan in some ways worse off than I had arrived.

Since returning to the U.S., I have been on the fence about resuming my Japanese studies.  While I really enjoyed learning the language and met a number of kind and interesting people through my studies, it just isn't practical for me to continue.  I have no intention of going back to Japan to work, my current work doesn't require Japanese skills, I've never been very keen on anime, and while being able to play Japanese video games in their native language is a neat trick, it really isn't worth spending years of your life for.

So it is with some sadness that I've finally decided that I won't be resuming my Japanese studies for the foreseeable future.

As a sort of final trip down memory lane (and possible reminder list should I decide later to study Japanese again), here is are some of the reference books that I found invaluable in learning Japanese:

1. Japanese for Busy People Volume 1, 2, and 3.  Kana versions, of course.  If you aren't willing to learn the Kana, then you might as well stop pretending you are going to learn Japanese.  These are a great place to start learning grammar, vocabulary, and kanji.  Once you finish all 3 volumes, you are probably ready to take level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
2. After you pass the level 3 test, it is time to start studying for the level 2 and level 1 tests.  Really, the JLPT tests can be thought of as two sets of tests: level 4 and level 3 are for beginners; level 2 and level 1 are intermediate/advanced.  The grammar covered in the level 4 & 3 tests is very similar, but level 3 is harder due to including more vocabulary and Kanji.  Likewise, level 2 and level 1 cover almost the same grammer, but level 1 requires almost twice as much kanji and level 2.  Anyway, when you get to studying for the level 2 and level 1 tests, you have to pick up a copy of どんな時どう使う日本語表現文型５００ from ALC Press.  I found this book to be absolutely invaluable; my copy is well-worn with lots of notes in the margins.
3. Now, to actually prepare for the level 2 and level 1 tests, I recommend the following study guides:
1. 日本語能力試験1・2級試験問題と正解
2. 日本語能力試験２級受験問題集
3. 完全マスター２級：日本語能力試験文法問題対策
4. 完全マスター：日本語能力試験１・２レブル：語彙 
4. Finally, if you are thinking of living and working in Japan, I highly recommend getting a copy of 敬語これだけBOOK.  I picked this up on a whim while waiting in line at a bookstore and simply cannot recommend it enough.  People will tell you that you don't need to know 敬語(keigo)...they are lying.  Unless you have a significant other who can take care of your housing arrangements you will need keigo.  Unless you work for a foreign company (where you can speak English) or you have no intention of working or researching in a professional office environment, you will need keigo.  This book is extremely easy to understand; it consists of a series of situations where keigo would be appropriate and tells you 3 acceptable phrases -- ranked "good", "better", and "best" -- for each scenario along with a brief explanation why one phrase might be better than another.  This books was written for young people in Japan, who also have trouble with honorific speech, so the opposing page consists of 3 common mistakes with explanations of why the phrases are wrong.  As a non-native speaker, you can reasonably skip reading the mistake page -- if nothing else, skipping it will make sure that you don't have the wrong words floating around in your head ready to slip out when it matters most.  Seriously, get this book.

Other than that, I highly recommend the full 3-course Pimsleur Japanese language program to anyone getting started with learning Japanese.  I'd go so far as to suggest that you complete the entire first course -- 30 lessons -- before you even start with the Japanese for Busy People books.  Buying the series new is pricey, so check with your local library, E-bay, or Craigslist for a used copy.

Finally, if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you have a great local resource in Soko Gakuen.  It is a non-profit language school associated with the Buddhist church in San Francisco's Japantown.  The classes are reasonably-priced, have small class sizes, and are taught by great teachers.  My wife and I took classes there every quarter for over 6 years.

So, what now?

Next up, we are trying our hands at learning French (hence the title of this post).  We started the same way we had success with learning Japanese: with the Pimsleur Language Program.  We're still on the first course, but so far, so good.  Here's hoping that our studies will, again, lead to something rewarding.

Happy New Year!

That's a lot of dough

As we prepare to celebrate another happy end of the fiscal fourth quarter, the good folks over at xkcd.com have prepared an awesome infographic reminding us what a dollar is worth.  Click to see an intelligibly-sized image:

Wither posi.net

I first registered the domain name posi.net back in 1995 during the great domain name gold rush. OK, so I was a little late to the party and all the good names were taken, but I was pretty happy to get a short domain name. I also kept the e-mail address kbyanc@posi.net until last year, when the volume of spam overwhelmed the little 233Mhz Soekris box I've been using as my firewall, mail, web, and home file server.

Earlier this year, I stopped renewing my Dynamic DNS service, effectively taking posi.net offline. And this month, after 16 years, I decided not to renew my domain registration.

I never really did much with the posi.net domain -- I mostly just used it to host my open source code repositories and a few toy web sites. I've been slowly working on converting the toy web sites to run on Google App Engine and am thinking of uploading the open source repositories to github. I'm not sure where I'm going to host my resume, but I'm not in any hurry to figure that one out.

We the people

...apparently flunked our high school government classes.

As you probably know, the Obama administration has set up a "We the people" section on the White House web site so as to solicit petitions from the American people. While there are a few well thought-out petitions, the majority just serve to demonstrate that many Americans have no idea how our federal government is designed to work nor what the function of the Executive branch is. For example:

• Amend the Constitution, making the Internet an unalienable right. Newsflash: the president does not have the power to add amendments to the constitution. Not even close. Petition for it all you want, he can't make this happen.
• Void the voting results that took place in Nicaragua this past Sunday 06 of November due to fraud by the FSLN. Seriously? He's the President of the United States. When did Nicaragua become a state?
• Legalize Mixed Martial Arts in New York. The President doesn't pass laws, much less state laws. You too are barking up the wrong tree.
• Re-establish and maintain the separation between investment banks and commercial banks. I'm 100% for the restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act...but the President doesn't pass laws. You need to petition your Congress-critters to get this done, not the Obama administration.
• Bar courts and lawmakers from a "second-class religion" status for minority religions like Wicca and NeoPaganism. He's the President, not Dictator; he can neither tell courts nor lawmakers what to do. Have you not heard of the separation of powers?
  
• Actually take these petitions seriously instead of just using them as an excuse to pretend you are listening. See above. I imagine it is hard to respond to petitions demanding the President to do things he has no legal power to do. Well, respond with something other than "/facepalm", that is.

I'm sure some of the authors of the above petitions would try and defend their misdirected efforts at government participation by pointing out that neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives offers a similar venue for soliciting petitions. That is true, and it is unfortunate. But that doesn't change the fact that the White House cannot act on many of the petitions. And, when some staffer writes a lengthy explanation of what the Executive branch has been doing to try and support your cause, it is doubly unfortunate that you don't seem to comprehend that it is all that he can do to support your cause.

If you want to change the laws, you need to write your Congressman. It isn't the President's job to get your Congressman to vote the way you want.

Ken Burns: The National Parks

We finished watching six of the most inspirational movies I've ever seen: the six part series that is Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Each part runs at a little over 2 hours long, full of American history set to the most beautiful scenery in the country.

Starting with the founding of the first national parks, with Yosemite and Yellowstone, and continuing through to the present, the series chronicles the American values that led to the creation of the national park system. And, rather than just painting the picture in broad stokes, the series follows the individuals who fought to establish the parks for the common good as well as those who wanted to exploit the land for private gain.

I can't recommend the series enough. Of course, PBS airs them from time to time, but you can also watch them on Netflix (which is what we did). The visuals are breathtaking, the history illuminating, and the issues as topical today as they were 150 years ago.