Let's Note QV8 here

I renovated a laptop PC from Microsoft Surface to Panasonic Let's Note recently.

Let's Note is a flagship series of Panasonic products. It is not popular not only globally, but also in Japan, mainly because of its high cost. Let's Note series were adopted as an official model PC in the Tokyo Olympic 2020, postponed to the next year unfortunately.

But, I believe its performance is supreme compared with any other laptops.

Let's Note's advantages are high performed CPU, total weight, many types of interface including VGA and LAN. The latest Let's Note equips a USB type C connector. It can be powered via type C, only in the case the adapter can provide over 65W power.

Let's Note QV8 has limited batteries. In my sense, after using it for three or four hours, the battery is expired. It is a terrible disadvantage.

Above all, this machine is cool but somewhat inconvenient. Cost effectiveness is bad, to be honest. I do not recommend to buy it unless you can take some financial support.

Bitcoin after corona shock

As the world is attacked by COVID-19, cryptocurrency is also in a peril.

The price of Bitcoin fell down by a half before corona virus outbreak. After that, it is recovering gradually. But the prospect is still uncertain.

Bloomberg: While coronavirus rages, bitcoin has made a leap towards the mainstream

Previously, Bitcoin was identified as a safe haven because it was independent from any governments or authorities. However, referring recent situations, the price is following the basal currencies.

In my sense, the idea that cryptocurrencies are invulnerable to financial crises is an illusion. Actually, the price of Bitcoin is determined by marketers absolutely. Any official forces cannot create new coins, different from fiats.

However, there are some factors to influence the price of cryptocurrencies outside from its mining process.

For example, when the energy cost is increased by oil shock, many miner will have to give up their work. It leads to downgraded reputation of Bitcoin.

Also, business confidence affects the price of Bitcoin, in my sense. In the boom, many investors are willing to buy Bitcoins. In a depressive state, they would not. Their feeling is somehow influential to the price itself.

In my opinion, recent breakdown of Bitcoin price was reflected with wide-spread pessimism of the market. I do not believe someone would by Bitcoin for safety now.

Therefore, the price of cryptocurrencies will be fracturing for a while, as COVID-19 pandemic will not be terminated soon.

Gloomy April Fool

Today, I write this entry on 1st, April.

Every year, I wrote some silly joke as an idea of April Fool. But this year, I would not like to write something.

The biggest reason is COVID-19 pandemic. More and more patients emerge everyday. We cannot see the termination of growing infectious storm. This situation is quite painful.

In addition, there are some false information, such as conspiracy theories, spread to the society following the tough situation. We have to be calm, neutral, and scientific. We have to avoid the risk of believing false facts.

Furthermore, my business as a researcher is unsuccessful. Therefore, I feel a little pessimistic.

More or less, everyone are inflicted damage by this situation. We have to maintain our daily life with least sacrifice.

Gamebook conference

Recently, I attended a conference of gamebook creators.

This event was held in Tokyo. In spite of corona virus shock, there were several audience who are interested in this theme.

Gamebook, or interactive novel, was developed in 1970s and became popular in late 20th century all over the world. In Japan, several foreign gamebooks written by famous authors, such as Steve Jackson, Ian Livingstone, and Dave Morris, were translated into Japanese.

Also, many gamebooks were released in Japan. Among them, novelization of computer game softwares, especially Family Computer, a Nintendo game console, was so successful that many best-selling FamiCon gamebooks were released one after another.

One presenter in this session was a writer of many FamiCon gamebooks. He was fond of playing computer games. Therefore, he would like to express fascinating elements of computer games on a paper gamebook.

However, as computer games became popular and easy to purchase, gamebooks declined rapidly. Considering the situation changing, he dropped himself out from the publisher to change the job, said he.

Now, gamebook is a minor media, but is still surviving. It is difficult to monetize gamebook publishing business. On the other hand, Kindle Direct Publishing and other digital publication service have significantly reduced the publishing cost. Indeed, I have published some original gamebooks on Amazon.

I believe gamebook will become a little more popular again as a casual habit in the future.

Financial Times in smartphone

Recently, I installed Financial Times application into my smartphone.

Since the organization I belong to has made a contract with FT, I can read any articles in FT for free. It is very helpful for some employees considering that FT provide highly qualified articles everyday.

Several years ago, I had been subscribing FT via Kindle. It took approximately 30 USD per month I remember. I tried to read leading articles every day, for improving my English skills and insight toward the world's current situation.

However, it was too difficult for me to understand the articles in FT. not only its high-graded English, but also discussion in detail in each article hindered me from easy reading.

As a result, I withdrew from FT a few month later. Few articles were read.

Now, it is the second chance for me. I am not confident, but try it again.

Wingspan, a bird-breeding game

Last weekend, I attended an analog game meeting. Most of the members are not Japanese. I had to communicate with members in English. But I enjoyed the event perfectly.

I played Wingspan, a newly developed board game, for the first time. The theme of the game is bird-breeding. you can get several birds to hay eggs in your board. Each kind of bird has abilities to make you advantageous. You have to get food, eggs, and bird cards balanced.

BoardGameGeek: Wingspan

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266192/wingspan

It took two and a half hours for the five players game. But I did not feel exhausted at all. It is because of its simple rules and scarce competitive elements.

More than one-hundred types of birds are present in Wingspan. Each of them has a realistic illustration and wingspan data. for bird lovers, Wingspan is worth to possess even not playing at all, I guess.

Members were very polite and kind. Thanks to the host and all attendees.

Gamebook authoring

Recently, my hobby is to write a gamebook.

Do you know gamebook? Gamebook is also called interactive novel. It was a genre of novel. But different from other type of novels, you can choose your own story in a gamebook.

Gamebook was spread in 1980s. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone were legendary gamebook authors. They built a mega-hit series of gamebooks.

But, as computer games become popular, the need for gamebooks got diminished. Till the end of 20th century, gamebook providers are almost perished, unfortunately.

Recently, we can write a gamebook with some useful tools. Also, Kindle Direct Publishing, as well as E-Pub format and also PDF style, helps both reader to read the gamebook easier and authors to publish their works. Therefore, newly developed gamebooks are published one after another.

I have published some gamebooks via KDP. You have a chance to see an English gamebook written by me.

Manners in dinner

In recent years, I have more opportunities to take a dinner in a gorgeous restaurant, fortunately. I am fond of delicious meals. And I am curious to take specific cuisine in each region.

However, some first-class restaurants make regulations such as a dress-code. To be honest, I am often annoyed to obey such requirement.

Of course, rich meal matches rich clothes. It is not cool to enter a gorgeous restaurant with tiered clothes.

On the other hand, waiters often recommend me to take wines with each dish. Tasting wines with appropriate meal is splendid with no doubt. The issue is, however, I cannot drink alcohol.

Nowadays, some restaurants offer non-alcoholic drinks. I am very thankful to these treatment. In my sense, waiters in a European restaurant tend to feel surprised when I reject a wine. It is perhaps that few European people cannot drink. I myself, would like to concentrate the dish without alcohol.

Rehav to write blogs

I had been left from this blog for one year for some reasons.

A long-term absent got rid of me some skills, not surprisingly.

I often read English articles both for work and for fun. So, I believe my reading speed has not become slow.

However, I seldom read English newspaper recently because there was no need to collect materials of blog writing. Therefore, I have got unfamiliar to world news in recent days.

Also, English writing skill is another issue. Grammar and knowledge of words are kept as I sometimes write academic articles in English. But, the speed of writing became slow.

As I understand, language skills are similar to physical exercise. Being immobilized for a while reduces your strength. I need some rehabilitation.

Sublingual immunotherapy for hay fever

I am suffering from hay fever for several years as I wrote before.

It is bad that the seriousness of this disease is getting worse by years because my body is exposed to allergen repeatedly. The last year was supposed to have become the worst spring.

Fortunately, however, sublingual immunotherapy saved me.

Sublingual immunotherapy is brand new treatment method for hay fever. The mechanism of this treatment is based on a hypothesis that hay fever emerges because you are exposed to massive pollen in spring all at once. As your immune system identifies pollen as enemy, your body makes sneeze and itching eyes. If your body is exposed to pollen everyday, you will become accustomed to pollen, as "immuno-tolerance."

You have to take medication everyday to induce immuno-tolerance. I have taken a pill including a small degree o the allergen for more than a year. Thanks to this, I have only very slight sneeze this year.

It is doubtful that this state will be continuous when stopping medication. Therefore, I cannot stop medication forever, perhaps. Nonetheless, I choose taking sublingual immnotherapy.

The third trial

About one year has passed since last post.

I have experienced some terrible things for this year. Some of them were tragic but unavoidable for me. Others were truly on my own responsibility. I was confused to live for a while. I regretted my behaviors seriously. But after all, my life will be continuous.

Fortunately, I was supported by some splendid mates. Not only for myself but also for giving thanks for them, as well as all of the readers, I will restart my blog posing from now.

May the God bless everyone.

Hay fever indistinguishable from cold

I am suffering from hay fever now.

It is so serious that I can hardly do anything without trouble.

I cannot concentrate on work. I have to care about my nose every minute.

Interestingly, and quite unfortunately, I cannot distinguish the symptoms of my hay fever from a common cold. I have a headache, as well as a sneeze. I feel very tired and I become easily exhausted. The only difference is the itching eyes. Therefore, I guess I have no cold.

I hate March and April. I would like to keep sleeping until summer.

Annoying SPSS

SPSS is a leading software of statistical analysis provided by IBM. Most researchers use SPSS for examining the data they gained. It is almost essential for scientists to utilize SPSS.

However, SPSS has some disadvantages. First, SPSS is very costly. It takes over 1,000 USD even for minimal use.

Second, SPSS is very hard to use. The interface of SPSS is not sophisticated. Its quality is far inferior to Microsoft Excel.

And third, SPSS has several bugs. Statisticians say they do not recommend us to use SPSS because of many bugs. When I heard it for the first time, I imagined that there were merely technical issues around the calculation. But actually, there are many apparent and critical bugs in SPSS. For example, when copying the data of Microsoft Excel to SPSS spreadsheet, a line of datasheet disappeared. I had to check hundreds of lines of the data manually.

After all, I consider abandoning SPSS. It is critical for me if the bug led to an incorrect conclusion of my research.

International conference regarding risk assessment

Yesterday, I participated in an international conference as a chairman.

This conference was held at Chiba University. Its theme was risk assessment and management of offenders with mental disorders. A Dutch specialist was invited to provide a keynote speech regarding SAPROF. SAPROF is a structured assessment tool about protective factors of mentally disordered offenders. Also, some Japanese researchers made a presentation about their specialty and clinical practice.

I have learned SAPROF at when I belonged to King's College London a few years ago. I was impressed with its usability. You can find some strengths of the subject with SAPROF. Therefore, the outcome of SAPROF can be easily shared with the subject whereas telling the results of other risk assessment tools to the subject may be invasive. It is a uniqueness of SAPROF.

In the discussion, I tried to let the participants speak frankly about the challenges in this region. Risk assessment is bound by Cassandra's curse, as I mentioned in this blog previously. Thus, the outcome of exactly assessing risks is hardly approved by the public.

My past entry: Cassandra’s curse

Therefore, we should talk about this theme with a neutral and scientific attitude. Of course, the presenters clearly understood this point. But, non-specialists is difficult to accept this issue. We have to explain the importance and value of precise risk assessment and management.

Unbreakable, boring than the last

I watched "Unbreakable."

It is a film published in 2000. Why I rent this film now is that "Glass" was recently published. Glass is a sequel to Unbreakable. I like James McAvoy, a staring of this film. Therefore, I wanted to watch Unbreakable before seeing Glass.

In Unbreakable, the protagonist looks an ordinary man. He is ex-star of a football team. But he encountered a traffic accident, making his body unable to play football. He is married and has a boy, engaging in a security company.

Mr. Glass, named because of his vulnerability to physical shock, a collector of American hero comics, however, suggests that he has a hero power. Actually, he is the only survivor of a deadly train accident. According to Mr. Glass, he is an "unbreakable," invincible to any physical attacks.

To be honest, I watched this movie bored. The storyline was not exciting. If the protagonist is unbreakable is the core of the plot. But he would not try it. He son attempted to shoot him for testing. It was a shocking scene. But I did not empathetic to the son. There are several safer way to prove his special power.

At last, the protagonist is awakened of his special power, unbreakable as well as the evil detecting sense. He fights to rescue victims of a villain. This process was also calm.

I felt this film was no good. But, in the last scene, I was surprised to know the truth behind the story.

Now, I am willing to see "Glass." Unfortunately, there are few cinemas providing this work now.

My personal rating: 3 (fair)

Medical AI symposium

Today, I attended a symposium whose theme was artificial intelligence. The presenters were engaging in developing or utilizing AI in medical industries. I was so impressed in their performance and visions that I gained some ideas to proceed my project.

In Japan, the shortage of AI specialists is a serious challenge. But acquiring and educating specialists is a common challenge regardless of the nations or regions. One of the uniquness of the issues in this region is that the strategy of developing professional participants has not been established.

One of the presenters claimed that the government has to support financially postgraduate engineers who are willing to enter a medical school. The sense of medical science is not developed in other than medical  practice, according to the presenter. Thus, it is difficult for IT specialist to learn medical science as a practitioner. Compared to this, it is relatively easy for a physician to learn IT techniques. I agree with this opinion.

In the latter part of the symposium, some presenters showed the products in which AI is utilized in medical practice. For example, latest AI algorithm can analyze optical images shot by an endoscope within microseconds. This program can diminish the risk of misdiagnosis of a physician. There are several other oppotiuunities in this region.

Today I learned many things. I am willing to go forward my research.

Deadly hay fever

As I wrote in the past, I am suffering from serious hay fever.

In the spring, as far as living in Japan, I cannot stop sneezing. Also, I feel tired, and my eyes are itching. I often have a headache. My thinking is severely interrupted.

Therefore, I took the sublingual immunotherapy. Since the last autumn, every day I took liquid prescribed by a physician, storing it under my tongue for a couple of munites, and swallowed it. This therapy leads my body to immunotolerance, theoretically.

So, what happened?

There seems no effect, unfortunately. Since the day before yesterday, I felt annoyed as if in the last spring.

I expect the immunotherapy will somehow mitigate my agony. But it looks not promised so far.

Crippled Nexus 5X

My smartphone was broken all at sudden.

So far, several malfunctions had been observed around my Nexus 5X. It often turned the connection off unintentionally. The touch panel was too sensitive that every time I tap the home button Google assistant appeared. Any other strange phenomena annoyed me for months. But I was patient because the two years contract with the telecommunication provider was continuous.

However, now it no longer works at all. Factory reset did not affect to recover it. I guess the motherboard is crippled.

I visited the provider shop I bought it. But the shopper was not friendly. She did not suggest any helpful idea to fix it.

Therefore, I decided to change the provider with buying a new smartphone.

In Japan, each provider is competing to gain new customers. Users altering the provider will get discounted devices. I expect I will get more attractive smartphone within today's night.

Restart

I have been absent from writing the blog for three months.

There are no particular reasons for withdrawal. But I felt a little tired of writing something every day.

And now, I will try daily blogging again.

Three months absence is enough to get rid my English writing skill entirely. Therefore, I need rehabilitation for a while to recover my ability.

Miskatonic University

I graduated from Miskatonic University. It's true.

Miskatonic University is a fictional facility in novels written by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. It is frequently mentioned in the media regarding Cthulhu Mythos.

Recently, a board game whose theme is Cthulhu was designed. The publisher called for funding via Kickstarter. Therefore, I participated in this project.

Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection Board Game

As a reward, I could graduate from Miskatonic University.

Crowdfunding is friendly to making board games because limited enthusiasts are interested in each game. Many boardgames cannot be adopted as a domestic product by a big company. Catan and Monopoly are rare exceptions. On the other hand, using crowdfunding the creator can gather money to develop the game he or she would like to publish. And fans can encourage the creator directly with investment.

The only concern is whether the product will be delivered to me without any accident. I am looking forward to seeing Miskatonic University.