In the middle of Genjo Koan, Dogen introduces an analogy involving fish, birds, sea, and sky. This was actually the first bit of Dogen that I ever translated.

Swim as they may, fish find no end to the sea; fly as they may, birds find no end to the sky. Yet fish and bird still remain in the sea and sky as they have for ages…birds would perish instantly if they left the sky, fish would perish instantly if they left the sea.

This all seems rather understandable by Dogen’s standards. But just when we’re ready for some kind of insight or conclusion, Dogen launches into an opaque series of Chinese anagrams:

以水為命しりぬべし、以空為命しりぬべし。以鳥為命あり、以魚為命あり。以命為鳥なるべし、以命為魚なるべし。

What do they mean?

Read the rest of this entry »

Douglas Crockford is the oracle of Javascript and holds the right position on Javascript 2.0. He also writes the quirky Department of Style blog. Here’s today’s post:

Once upon a time there was a small toad named Nathaniel. Nathaniel was despised by everyone who knew him. Not because he was a toad, or because he pulled the wings and legs off of flies before he ate them, but because he could not be trusted.

One day at the forest tavern, where all the small forest creatures went nightly to get drunk, Nathaniel announced that he was never going to pay back the money he had borrowed from his little woodland friends. And he borrowed large sums of money from just about everyone.

So they killed him. And then they pulled his legs and arms off and ate him.

Sakiko has started a blog at http://sakikokimura.blogspot.com. Expect lots of cat pictures.

A recent college graduate I know recently found himself most unhappy in his new job. But was there something really wrong with the company he had had such high hopes for, or was it merely a case of the freshman blues? Where to turn for advice? Friends? Parents? Professors?

Read the rest of this entry »

2006 postings to Numenware are now available in book form for the low, low price of $19.95. What better belated Christmas present for your loved one or even yourself to read in the tub.

From the intro:

2006 was the year with the greatest density of neurotheological content on the blog, and these articles, taken as a whole, would I hope represent a meaningfully significant, if somewhat quirky, overview of the field.

Loyal readers of Numenware who read posts as they went up may have missed the discussion in the comments section, many of which are extremely informative. These comments have been included in the book, typos and all.

Buy Numenware 2006 from Lulu.com now. 140 pp., with an extensive (10 page) index. Digital version available for three bucks and change.

The word must be out about what Daddy’s interested in because under the tree for me at Christmas-time were two, count ‘em, two books by Andrew Newberg, MD, namely “Why We Believe What We Believe” and “Why God Won’t Go Away”. Picked up the first one and started in on Chapter 1, “The Power of Belief”. The first story was about a guy for whom a cancer drug worked when he believed it would and didn’t when he didn’t. That seems a little off-topic–the book’s supposed to be about “Why We Believe”, not “What Belief Does”, but hey, let’s give Andy the benefit of the doubt. But then he undercuts his own case by quoting estimates that such spontaneous remissions occur only one in 3,000 or perhaps as few as 100,000 medical cases. And that’s even before you’ve eliminated spontaneous remissions not associated with “belief”. Why exactly are we supposed to be so concerned with something that might, or might not, be responsible for healing some infinitesimally tiny fraction of sick people?

Read the rest of this entry »

According to a post to the computer-go mailing list, Tei Meikou 9-dan (pictured; GoBase bio), known for his expertise in computer go, characterized the Monte Carlo-style go program Crazy Stone (earlier post) as “at least 1-dan”, based on its winning performance at the First UEC Cup Computer Go Tournament. This is a huge milestone. Tei characterized moves 86 and 88 as “almost professional level” (see SGF game record).

On December 1 we participated in the 21st Annual Holiday Home Tour & Progressive Dinner in Historic West Adams. Groups of 20-30 toured six classic houses, mostly on W. 25th.

One house of particular interest was the Bernays Family Residence at 1656 West 25th Street, since it was designed by S. Tilden Norton, the architect that designed our house. The two houses share the American Foursquare/Colonial Revival style, and have many features in common such as the front attic gable and porch extending halfway across the front of the house to the right. And this house, like ours, was turned into a rooming house in the ’70s and ’80s, with up to 30 occupants, before being lovingly restored.

View Larger Map

Western Heights is the neighborhood right to our west—bounded by Western on the east, Arlington on the west, Washington on the north, and I-10 on the south. When we were looking for a house we ran into this area, which contains some of the most fabulous, large-scale, sumptious century-old homes anywhere in LA.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the next generation of JavaScript! The ECMAScript Edition 4.0 (ES4)Working Group has been hard at work and on Oct. 22, 2007 put out an overview. Their proposals give new meaning to the concept of “kitchen sink” and “design by committee”. The only thing they forgot was to rename the language Javathon++. Luckily, ES4 is no more likely to take root than the previous abortive proposal issued in 2003.

Read the rest of this entry »