Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a rainy day.
The news report about the arrest of an American environmental activist for not carrying his passport in Wakayama prefecture left a foreboding.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's rainy to fair.
By a curious coincidence, the loud explosions have frequently occurred at different plants dealing with some sorts of chemicals in China and Japan one after another since the recent massive explosions of the Tianjin harbor site. The global stock markets have still been sick.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a cloudy day.
Whereas the Chinese government exhibited the extensive reinforcement of their gradually modernizing armaments in Beijing during its military parade today, they also announced that its military personnel would be reduced by about three hundred thousand. Their naval ships appeared in the Bering Sea near Alaska while pleading that it was only meant to tap new natural resources there. To their regret, the old-fashioned military parade with which they have continued since the Communist China era doesn't cut a favorable figure nowadays. For the purpose of advertising the newly developed weapons manufactured by its munitions industry, however, it may be worthwhile. Whether or not the colorful artistic paintings on the bodies of the new lethal weapons, which probably Russians first began, could set a high valuation is uncertain. I don't think that a fancily dressed ICBM is to stateswomen's liking.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
According to an advertisement by Toyota, they may want to appeal to the consumers by showing that they want to realize some of the items that appear in the Hollywood movie, The Back to the Future. Toyota has already started carting a hydrogen-powered car that runs by reacting hydrogen gas with air while generating electricity for driving and discharging only water vapor, instead of burning gasoline while producing combustion for driving and emitting exhaust gas including greenhouse gases and pollutants, to market. However, nobody believes the future in which an auto manufacturer will sell a car that's powered inside a nuclear reactor using either a sort of fissionable fuel or some sort of waste, like a Derorian-based time machine seen in the movie. Although the future of hydrogen-powered drives should be promising for many auto and transportation applications, to be honest, I am not sure whether or not it's suitable for the common driver's own cars on the road, as written a few times before.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Got up at six-thirty in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
Toyota announced that they would invest 50 million dollars to establish the AI research center in order to develop AI systems specialized in the applications to automobiles in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, which have built honors and achievements under the sponsorship of a number of the US enterprises for many years. The development of AI systems is considered to be one of the necessities for a dream of fully autonomous cars. Indeed, for many years, Japanese private enterprises have obtained a lot of technological harvests from the basic research that the excellent brains have carried out under the directions of the professors versed in their specialties at the laboratories of these top institutes and universities overseas through the graduate school researchers who were selected out of their employees and assigned to these laboratories.
It's hoped that the capabilities and the achievements of the science and technology graduate schools of some Japanese private universities will be vastly improved, so that a major company may have a large stake in an ambitious project relying on a profitable partnership with them someday. However, without the patient support the private enterprises for bringing up the graduate schools of Japanese private universities, their situations won't change dramatically. It should take Japanese prestige private universities some decades or a longer time to catch up with MIT and Stanford University at the graduate school levels.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Got up at six-thirty in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast. Went out shopping this morning. Ate a Japanese meal for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a rainy day.
Monday, September 7, 2015
Got up at six forty-five in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
The stock market index of Shanghai declined by about 2.5% today. The global stock markets other than it were relatively flat.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a rainy day.
It's well known that the US government assigns social security numbers to all US citizens and legal residents for the sake of convenience of its social security system and so on. The social security number is considered to be a piece of personal information that each individual has to protect very securely in the US. For the purpose of identifications and agreements required for the important documentation at the public and private offices, the schools, and the banks, US citizens and legal residents may write their social security numbers into some places on the forms cautiously if necessary. In general, people don't ask about other people's social security numbers in common sense, and they seldom talk about their social security numbers if asked. It's usual for people not to tell nor show their social security numbers at retail stores and other insecure places in the US.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Japanese pasta for dinner. Because the season's 18th typhoon is approaching, it rained this morning. It stopped raining early this afternoon.
Today, the stock market indices of Shanghai and Nikkei soared by about 2.3% and 7.7%, respectively.
According to the news reports, the so-called my-number system is going to be introduced in Japan. It's my current understanding that the my-number which the Japanese government will soon notify all the Japanese citizens and legal residents for convenience' sake of the official works corresponds to the US's social security number. At this stage, I don't know exactly the differences between these two numbering systems. It sounds rather dangerous that people will carelessly use the card, the surface on which the my-number is printed and, the IC chip of which it's stored, at retail stores and other insecure places for some purposes, e.g. a plan for the consumption tax refund proposed by the Treasury Department.
If the Japanese government is planning on not putting special importance on the secrecy of the my-number in itself but putting it on confidence in the my-number card with the IC chip for the purposes of important identifications and agreements, unlike the US social security number, any serious troubles may not happen, even when their my-numbers are known by many others. In this case, the my-number system merely adds a person a distinction with his or her my-number from others, like his or her middle name and car license number, and the my-number card may correspond to the seal that Japanese have ever used traditionally and may take the place of it at no distant date. If a stolen card can be invalidated and a new card can be reissued when his or her my-number card is either stolen or lost, some potential troubles may be mostly prevented. However, there always remain some risks that a fraud forges a counterfeit my-number card and commits a new variety of crimes by ill-using it relatively soon. Anyway, it's more difficult to make a copy of the my-number card with the IC chip than that of the ordinary seal, so the my-number card can be more reliable.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day. Although the season's 18th typhoon passed through Japan while coming close to the Nagano prefecture on its way to the Japan Sea yesterday, its influence on the weather conditions here wasn't so heavy. On the other side, according to the news reports, the coexistence of the season's 17th typhoon in the Pacific has caused heavy rains in some areas of the Kantô region, so the Kinugawa River was angrily flooded.
Today, the stock market indices of Shanghai and Nikkei fell by about 1.4% and 2.3%, respectively. The fluctuation of the global economy due to a cloud on the horizon of the Chinese economy hasn't calmed down yet.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Got up at six forty-five in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine, clear day.
Differently from the case I took up the day before yesterday, if the Japanese government designs that the my-number of each individual should be treated as the most important piece of personal information and used for important identifications and agreements without necessarily relying upon the my-number card, a disreputable plan for the consumption tax refund would be on a slippery slope in view of some concerns about the prevention against the possible frauds by the pretenders. Probably, the Japanese government only wants to say that risking an important piece of personal information for daily shopping in order to gain a tax refund of four thousand yen per year at the maximum isn't profitable for most people, by proposing this troublesome plan. If an itemized reduced tax rate must be introduced necessarily to some necessaries, one of the simplest ideas of tax-free only on uncooked rice, which doesn't require the consumers to be bothered with risking their personal information at any purchases, is better because it's trouble-free.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Got up at seven-thirty in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast. Went out shopping this morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner. It's a fine day.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Got up at seven forty-five in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a cloudy day.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Got up at six-thirty in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
The Nakadake crater inside the huge caldera of Mt. Aso in the Kyushu district erupted in a big way this morning. It's rather easily understandable why natural disasters due to climate change have occurred so frequently in these latter days. On the other side, the state of the volcanic and seismic activities in Japan that have been intensified recently isn't so. According to the news sources, from a long-range perspective, the current tumultuous activities are normal in fact.
The most practical and effective measure to manage to better these worsening situations in a country with an uneasy atmosphere is the transfer of the domiciles to safer districts in advance. In any case, the choice of the place where to reside should be one of the most important factors to live in security.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a cloudy day.
An environment with a temperature of 15 to 25 degrees C (59 to 77 degrees F) and a humidity of below 50% seems to be most comfortable. When the temperature rises up near or above 30 degrees C (86 degrees F) or drops down near or below 10 degrees C (50 degrees F), I usually feel discomfort or sometimes drowsiness. In the harvest season and the fresh green season, without relying on climate control by the air conditioner, the fireplace, or another system, the moderate weather brings a comfortable environment to the rooms of a house located in the district where I live now.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a cloudy day.
The slight hollows that appeared on the surfaces along the nail roots of all of my fingers due to mild chilblain when staying in a chilly room seven to eight months ago have already moved to their tips. The faint scars that were left on both of my arm skins around the inner joints due to prickly heat after staying in a muggy room one to two months ago have also disappeared completely. In general, these uncomfortable environments in the mid-winter and summer seasons don't encourage clear thinking. An abnormal environment or an unhealthy stimulus doesn't help one attain any enlightenment at all but helps one find only a peculiar or freakish idea in most cases.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Japanese pasta for dinner. It's a rainy day.
A committee approved a controversial bill to revise the Japan-US Security Treaty this afternoon, as many expected. It was hoped that, instead of relying on a controversial constitutional interpretation, some relevant amendments to the Constitution would be made after the clear explanations for the matters beneath these surfaces to the Japanese people and the constructive debates among the politicians. However, it seems to me that Japan isn't the nation that has grown up to be able to do so adequately, and unfortunately, even the tendency of the world has been retrograding in terms of clearness and constructiveness in these latter days. At least, the parliamentary government should be conducted in a more sophisticated manner, for the purpose of being a good example to the other Asian nations where male chauvinism is still unchecked.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a cloudy day.
The Federal Reserve Bank of the US announced today that the rise in its interest rate from the bedrock was postponed in view of the recent instability of the global economy.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
The ayes of the House of Councilors of Japan have it, the security bill that a committee approved the day before yesterday was passed before daybreak in the morning. Then, both the Houses have approved this security bill.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Got up at seven-thirty in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast. Went out shopping this morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Got up at seven-thirty in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
According to the news reports, a popular compact helicopter-type drone available on the market hit the upper part of the donjon of the Himegi Castle accidentally, and one of its copper-made window frames of it was somewhat scarred recently. A problem drone probably flew at an altitude of 30 to 50 meters (100 to 160 feet) relative to the ground before a clash. Fortunately, because it fell down on the roof of a donjon after a clash with a window frame, there was no injured person.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Got up at seven o'clock in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
The weight of a typical commercial drone with a full load may range from several hundred grams to a few kilograms, depending upon its carrying capability. The impact of such a fallen drone against the head of a person seems not to be minor. Let's imagine the damage due to the impact of a familiar size-D battery that's freely fallen from various altitudes on the head of a person. Taking into consideration that the weight of the size-D battery is about 100 grams, the impact of a size-D battery that's fallen from a height of 3 to 5 meters (10 to 16 feet) against the top of the head of a person isn't so slight. That impact sounds rather painful and may cause a small bump on the head. If it's freely fallen from an altitude of 30 to 50 meters, it seems to me that the impact can cause serious or fatal damage. The weight of most of the commercial drones available is much heavier than that of a size-D battery, so the damage caused by the impact of a drone falling from an altitude of 30 to 50 meters can be more serious than that of a size-D battery falling from the same altitude, though the plastic-made parts that cover the main frame, power machinery and battery of a drone may cushion the impact to some extent.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Got up at seven o'clock in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
The applications of some sort of small helicopter-type drones to the air transportation of a light and compact package have been or are going to be put to trial flight in the US. Anxiety about these sorts of new drone applications is attributable to the difficulty of establishing safe air routes specialized for the purpose of mass air transportation without a hitch. In order to reduce the damage due to the clash of a fallen drone, the maximum altitude to fly should be kept below a certain level in the urban and residential districts. A possible regulation of air traffic for the drone carriers by limiting its maximum altitude below the average height of common two-story residences should heighten the difficulty of operating a drone because it significantly increases the possibility that a drone accidentally hits the homes, fences, trees, utility poles, electric wires, vehicles, peoples and many other things during delivery. Further advancement in automatic evasion technologies to avoid colliding with objects at a low altitude might enable transportation businesses to fly their drone carriers at full capacity in the future.
Two out of the possible plans to regulate drone air traffic are as follows. One of these plans is that the drone carriers are allowed to fly only above the existing roads and streets. For a safety concern, any travel of a drone carrier over the highways and freeways has to be prohibited. According to this plan, the drone carrier is allowed to fly at a higher altitude, e.g. 5 to 30 meters (16 to 100 feet) when it travels along the roads, and it's allowed to fly at a lower altitude, e.g. the ground to 5 meters (16 feet) when it travels along the streets. Because the tops of most cars are solidly protected, the impact of a fallen drone mayn't hurt a driver or any passengers directly. However, it can't be denied that the impact may trigger a major traffic accident. The convertibles have no protection when the tops are closed down. The cyclists wear only the protection of their helmets. Pedestrians need to check carefully the presence of a drone overhead when they are crossing the roads. The restriction of air traffic for the drone carriers only to a lower altitude when flying above the streets may help protect the pedestrians from a hard impact, but the automatic evasion technologies for a compact drone still leave a lot of things to be desired. The other plan below is contrary to the above-mentioned plan. Although the other plan that the drone carriers fly mostly over the residence areas at a higher altitude while minimizing traversing the busy roads is better than the above-mentioned plan in terms of the reduction in the frequency of causing personal injuries, it seems to be more troublesome on the whole because the residents at their hallways and backyards and the pedestrians on the streets have no protection against a possible hard impact of a drone fallen from a high altitude at all, and the privacies of them can be very frequently and easily violated. Therefore, it seems to me that its full realization is tough for now.
On the other hand, the spread of the applications of drones for the purposes of collecting various kinds of information from the sky easily and cheaply is very promising. The uses of drones outside the urban and residential districts for some professional missions have already been appreciated reasonably because they have delivered without causing any serious troubles so far.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Got up at seven forty-five in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Japanese pasta for dinner. It's cloudy to rainy.
A drone was originally developed as a flying target that can be used for the purpose of cultivating the pilot's skills to shoot an enemy aircraft down on maneuvers, like a clay pigeon of trapshooting. For the last few decades, drones have been vigorously diverted to other military uses, such as patrol, espionage, and bombing. The primary purpose of relying increasingly upon unmanned aviation is the reduction in the number of fallen from their own countries. Therefore, this tendency should continue to build up for the time being. In the not-so-distant future, we may see that the military authorities of a country will deploy some kinds of robotic tanks, copters, and other types that can be remotely controlled and partially automated on-the-ground operations in order to minimize the number of not only the army casualties due to fighting at close range from their own counties but also the civilian casualties due to the bombing errors from their hostile counties. This should be the right direction to advance. In addition, the capture of nuclear power from a far distance while protecting the homeland with some new species of reliable interceptors, e.g. the advanced antimissile missile, laser cannon, rail gun, etc., disposed properly on the grounds and the ships and in the orbits is another potential application of these remote controlled artificial troops. The ultimate goal of this advancing direction should be the realization of the armaments that fulfill the duties without taking anyone's life from any side. Currently, however, it's only an unfulfilled dream.
These unmanned small aircraft aren't only open to military utilization but also to civil utilization in various ways, as written in my diary for the last few days. It can't be denied that one of the aims in popularizing various kinds of civil utilization of drones very much these days including the mass air transportation using drone carriers is to cultivate the people's talents to operate the drones and the robots accurately and quickly, which can potentially be applied to many fields including the future battlefields, so that the possibility of the above-mentioned coming armament may be opened up some day. Equally, the popularization of video games will continue for the same aims. Before people know where they are, things are going on imperceptibly.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a rainy day.
The realization of the armaments that fulfill the duties at the battlefront while taking out nobody from any side may be nearly impossible. However, it seems to me that through patient political efforts, the establishment of a global system that allows people to avoid any war is quite possible someday in the distant future. This is what peoples' political efforts have to be turned to.
Unlike the conditions at the front in the war, the realization of the weapons that enable the officers to arrest the suspects remotely, safely, and surely without risking anyone's lives including the suspects' lives at the corner of the street in peace may be fairly possible, because the number of the suspects in a case is limited in general. Even after the world with no war is materialized by sheer dint of political efforts in the future, the necessity for this sort of rather peaceful weapons will still remain. Of course, the future government should be aware of the internal and external abuses of such future defensive weapons that will cause other new sorts of problems. Anyway, this is a matter in the distant future.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Got up at six forty-five in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's cloudy to fair.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Got up at seven-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast. Went out shopping this morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Got up at seven o'clock in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Japanese pasta for dinner. It's a fine day.
NASA announced that the dark streaks that have periodically appeared at some particular areas on the surface of Mars might be the signs of the existent water in the liquid state containing a high concentration of salt according to the analysis of data obtained from its satellite. Whether or not the schedule of NASA's Curiosity rover includes the investigations at the areas where the dark streaks appear hasn't been reported.
As many people know, Curiosity is the unmanned rover that was sent on a mission to analyze a lot on the surface of Mars. NASA's staff have been controlling Curiosity remotely from the Earth. The applications of the technologies that enable to control the mobile machines should progress first and foremost to the fields that are attended by serious dangers, like the surface of Mars. A respectable number of auto manufacturers have ever engaged in the development of fully autonomous cars that require no driving by humans. The dream of a fully autonomous car is aimed at improving driving safety and comfort. Technology-wise, the realization of artificial troops that are remotely controlled and partially automated with the intent to demolish a lot on the battlefronts seems to be easier than that of fully autonomous cars that may require a degree of the AI's control with the intent to run while avoiding hurting anything as certainly as possible on the public roads. The robotic tanks, copters, and other types organized in an artificial troop that may be powered with either a conventional engine or a motor with a fuel cell are transported to the battlefronts by unmanned carriers and aircraft, the refueling of these robots may be carried out by means of a direct connection to the disposable or reusable smaller gas-pod filled with the fuel for some dozens that can be parachuted down from an unmanned transportation plane to the ground near the front, and the supply of ammunition for these robots may be carried out likewise. It's more desirable that the missions of the artificial troops should be completed in a relatively short term before the hostile countries start trying to upset the communications with them by spoiling the particular communication satellites or performing hacking operations intensely. The capability of switching from the remote control mode to the autonomous mode designated for some minimized defensive duties including the removal of the jamming activities within their gunshot automatically and manually should be necessary in case the completion of the missions of the artificial troops requires a longer term and the communications with them are often disturbed. The removal of the jamming activities may be rather easily accomplished because these activities inform the artificial troops where the jamming devices are.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Got up at six-fifteen in the morning. Ate a piece of bread for breakfast, a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. It's a fine day.
The season's 21st typhoon has fallen considerably to a tropical depression and changed rapidly its course northeastward after passing through the main island of Taiwan and grazing along the east coast of China. Now, it's a depression that is going to move further northeastward over the Sea of Japan riding on the westerly after passing through the Korean peninsula. Some weather reports forecasted that it would intensify significantly again.
