Born in New York City and raised by parents rooted in the Japanese music industry, Utada Hikaru always had talent for music. At age 16 her Japanese debut album "First Love" sold over 2 million albums during her first week alone and is still the best selling album in Japanese music history. Since she began writing her own music at the age of 12, she has always led the direction of all the music she produced. Sure she's a talented singer/songerwriter but to me she represents more than just that.

Whether we see it directly or indirectly, faith and philosophy has always embedded itself into our culture to shape the way we see the world around us. This rule encompasses everyone regardless of whether or not we embrace or reject what we see around us. I suppose that's one explanation to why I connect with her so well. The language of her lyrics are Japanese, but the language of her music isn't. In her music she makes plenty of references to faith and prayer but she clearly isn't religious. Although an iconic pop star in Japan, she says that she can never be Japanese...nor American. She has neither sold out nor has she become irrelevant, and her music continues to evolve as well as her themes.

I was always the black (yellow?) sheep; moving from city to city, school to school, crowd to crowd. Secretly I hated my parents for leaving Japan and raising me here. Back then I would've gladly exchanged whatever I had here just to be a normal student in Japan. I wish I could tell you how everything has changed since then. I wish everyone spoke Japanese so that everyone could hear what I hear when I listen to this song because no translation could ever come close to what this song has to offer. I wish I could explain why I don't need your love. I wish I could explain why I don't need to belong anywhere and that all I need is my own identity and this little thing called "faith". I wish I could explain why there's no more fear, no more loneliness, even at the darkest hour of the night. Unfortunately I can't, which is why I created this blog. It's not my intention to dramatize but it's just the way I am.

神道

Our economy's fucked up. It's so fucked up that a charismatic, energetic new President alone won't be able to fix it. You can place the blame on whomever you may like but this current situation was never any one person's responsibility. If the problem can be created by one person or one group, than it can just as easily be solved. Everyone contributes to the shape and direction of our economy, and in turn everyone is affected by it. No single mind can dictate how it moves and there lies it's strength, beauty, and danger. It sounds like one of those science fiction movies (think "I, Robot") in which the supercomputer does something no one predicted while still following the laws that govern it, and fucks everyone up.

In the beginning the difference between machines and humans were crystal clear. Computers were horribly inflexible because they were limited by simple algorithms due to insufficient technology. Deep Blue, the chess supercomputer that defeated world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997 was confused as an achievement in AI but it was only an achievement in computational power. Chess masters were better than average players not because they can predict more moves ahead, but because they can see the chess board at a higher level. Deep Blue won only because it had the ability to compute millions of moves per second, but in terms of software there was nothing remarkable. Computer science was always thought to have this element of "soul-lessness" that seperated it from humans. Now this difference is becoming grayer and grayer as collaboration, a large depository of library code, and higher level programming languages are becoming available. Like the economy, we are beginning to create code that is more powerful, complicated, and unpredictable. Sooner or later we're going to see software which will pass the Turing Test and shift the way in which we think of ourselves as this issue that has always existed yet repeatedly ignored will be forced into the faces of the most stubborn. Ideally. Unfortunately, passing judgment has never been our strong suite.

The Sphex wasp will sting a prey such as a cricket only enough so that it will be paralyzed. The wasp will then carry the prey to her nest, leave the paralyzed prey at the entrance of her burrow and check to make sure that all is well inside the burrow. Then she drags the prey into the nest and leave her eggs with the paralyzed prey never to come back again. When the eggs hatch, the newborn baby wasps will have the still alive and fresh (but paralyzed) prey to consume.

Through observation the wasp appears to have an unusually high level of intelligence, but upon further inspection it becomes obvious that this routine is rigidly programmed. If the paralyzed cricket is moved back when the wasp checks inside the nest, the wasp will drag the cricket back to the entrance and recheck inside the nest. On one recorded occasion this happened forty times with the exact same result.

When a dog sees it's owner throw it's favorite bone over a fence, the dog may see the bone on the other side of the fence and bark in frustration. The dog may see that there is a hole in the fence a good distance off but won't realize that by running to the hole and crawling through the hole, the dog can get to the delicious bone. In the problem space that the dog perceives, running to the hole = running away from the bone while in an abstracted problem space running to the hole = running towards the bone.

Both examples use creatures without the same level of intelligence as humans but the idea still applies to us all. We make the same mistakes over and over again because we don't notice the sameness of the repetitions. We can't get to our goal because we can't remap the problem space. We are at the highest echelon amongst creatures of this planet, but the further back we pull our perceptions and the higher up we raise our consciousness, our actions and thoughts may also seem rigid, mechanical, and just plain stupid.

Life is like

beer.

you can't fully appreciate quality lager if you binge keystone light every weekend

Call & Response

i love open source. quite simply it's an inevitable outcome of the information age and it's beaauuuuuutiful. it's cool that justin dillon took that idea and applied it to a humanitarian movement and it seems like he understands open source.

so where will open source take us? the question goes back to what the world looked like before technology. people are always driven to do stuff, and things had to get done. but without blackberries to keeps everyone connected to everyone else, people naturally formed structures that were hierarchical. kinda like standard deviation. but things are shifting now, and we're seeing a shift in power to the masses. do you see the change? humanity is not being dragged from the top, but moving in harmony. injustice and corruption is being exposed and punished. the gears and hinges are being polished and greased. the definition of self is shifting from 'I' to 'We' and identity will fade to black. humanity itself will form a consciousness and humanity itself will determine our fate. singularity.

one more thing. no one needs to be explained that human trafficking is "wrong", yet it still exists. there's players on both sides that are constantly moving the issue in different directions. i dont question justin's intentions but i ask myself, where does he think this is going? he mentioned several times that he had no idea what he was doing. he just found something he thought needed to be changed and went around trying to change it. honestly, that's awesome. but at the same time, like anyone else who strives for change, his efforts are ultimately

My destiny found me
It was clear why the struggle was so painful
Metamorphosis, this is what I changed to
And God, I'm so thankful

I think what I like about Nas is how dynamic his character has been throughout his career. His legendary debut album Illmatic received incredibly positive reviews for good reason. As a 21 year old his songs centered around what he observed in hometown Queensbridge, New York, and no one in the rap industry could portray life with such complex lyricism like he could. With obvious talent he rose to stardom pretty quickly, but his next two albums were received with mixed results. Everyone demanded another Illmatic, but always moving forward he continued to release music in his own direction. His fourth album Nastradamus was a complete tank and everyone HATED it. Critics cried out that he completely sold out and that his career was over. Jay-Z took the opportunity and shot down Nas in the song "Takeover" and declared himself the king of New York. With his future looking bleak, he released my personal favorite album Stillmatic. Don't get confused by the title though because this album is nothing like Illmatic. But instead of describing this album to you, I'll let the author do it himself. Like a true lyricist, he explains his album in one song better than I can in this entire post.

His evolution from street observer to over saturated superstar to his own personal enlightenment resulted in what I see in him now, a man with purpose. For that alone I have mucho respect for him.

Nas - One Mic

...in fact, I bet if they had a consciousness they would revere their hosts. They would probably do some kind of rain dance and shit in hopes that we don't send antibiotics all up in their grill. But like I already said, it's not that bad. In fact, I would argue that it is a thing of beauty.

I spent the weekend creating efficient search algorithms for my EECS project. remember in The Matrix keanu reeves was like "how do you stare at that thing?" referring to the cool streaming green lines on the screen. and the black guy was like "i see blondes, brunettes, redheads..." well i've been programming so much lately that i see an entire universe in that pixelated screen. i create and simulate worlds, mess around with variables to find unexpected results, and find cool new things that i never thought of before. it's gotten to the point where i'm starting to see the world in algorithms. let me tell you, human beings are one of the most beautiful creations ever. the complexity, detail, depth, everything extends infinitely off into the future. i can not tell you what we were designed for, but i can tell you that right now we have a tendency to act like viruses. through worn bodies and tired minds we continue to live