Thoughts on the 2014 UNSCEAR Report Regarding Fukushima Radiation Health Risks

I want to post something irresponsibly ill-informed. Please bear with me. I just saw an article (full disclosure: that site is paid for by the World Nuclear Association which obviously colors how I view their perception of the report) that says UNSCEAR's study shows data against rising cancer levels around the Fukushima plant and against increased radiation exposure excepting areas within the 20km evacuation area. Here is their very poorly made power point presentation. I want to get more informed so I can understand what kind of background the report arises from, but I'm finding that more difficult than I originally expected.

It may be just be that I'm incredibly skeptical of anything authorities say about Fukushima. And I think that's reasonable given how much TEPCO and the Japanese government lied, especially directly following the earthquake when they said there was no meltdown whatsoever. So naturally I have to wonder what affiliations UNSCEAR might have. It's not like it is uncommon in the US to appoint regulatory officials who have been CEOs of the corporations they are regulating. Their conflicts of interest ought to exclude them from taking such appointments, but sadly that is not the case. I googled briefly to see what I could find, but the articles that came up inspired little confidence in their journalistic integrity. One of the better ones can be found here.

That's a big part of the problem I have in trying to find the answers I want. It's easiest to find links to sensationalist articles that are in many cases even less credible to me than the news I consider propaganda. One of them claimed that UNSCEAR is "subservient to IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency)" who must approve all its reports. And that the chairman, Wolfgang Weiss, was "a boss" (how incredibly vague) for Euratom, an international organisation founded to create a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe.

Given common sense developed through years of rolling my eyes at committee appointments, it seems any of that could be accurate. But there's a serious lack of trustworthy information.

I'm not saying it's entirely outside the realm of possibility that UNSCEAR is actually an unbiased and independent committee. I'm also not saying that it is impossible that the observed thyroid cancer spikes were an isolated incident linked with the initial meltdown. It could very well be that the protective measures are working outside of the 20km evacuation zone.

What I am saying is that at the end of the day you have to be able to trust the information you're being given if it is to have any value. Neither side of this argument inspires trust, in my opinion. Data collection is a potentially dangerous task, so it takes a dedicated organisation to do it (assuming they really collect the data and don't just estimate it, a practice that has been employed before and that I wouldn't blame them for because getting close enough to collect useful data would be scary). But who supports that organisation? If their findings aren't transparent and their affiliations utterly independent, I wouldn't be willing to stake human lives on them.

The bloggers writing about this stuff, on the other hand, aren't conducting investigations that can override my skepticism with facts. Linking to Wikipedia and copy/pasting supposed affiliations (however much sense they might seem to make) doesn't argue the case. Neither does jumping to conclusions based on observing other unrelated events and circumstances. Good investigative journalism about the Fukushima plant itself could have been reassuring, but the new secrecy act the Japanese government passed last December made matters of nuclear energy a state secret. Reporting on them can earn both journalists and informants years of prison time.

I think it's hard to come out on either side of this issue without being judged either gullible or paranoid. I suppose I'm a little of both and that may be while it's hard for me to buy into the information I'm finding. But without transparency and without investigative journalism what should a reasonable person think? The best I can come up with is that I'm not moving near the Fukushima plant any time soon, and that I doubt any chairpersons of the IAEA will either.

Email: What are your thoughts on raising your kid with regard to language and religion?

I got a question from a friend of mine and thought I'd share my answer here too. Here's his email.

Hey I was curious. Please don't take offense I'm just curious because you have an interesting family life that is very distinct and multicultural. Are you raising your kid multilingual? And if so, English and Japanese? It may seem like a dumb question. But here is an even weirder follow up. And please again I don't mean this in a jerky way it's just been on my mind. What are your opinions on raising your kid religiously? My wife to be is Jewish and I'm a dirty pagan. We are both learning Swedish (and obviously we speak English), but I was wondering about your strategy to incorporate your ethno/religious background in your situation. Me and Demi have talked loosely about how we would do it with our kids, but I'm really curious about your opinions. Sorry if this seems weird lol. I [just] finally got the courage to ask someone who is kinda in our situation but theoretically lol.

No problem at all man. I wouldn't be any kind of friend if I took offense to you asking my advice and opinions. Those are some really challenging questions so I hope you don't mind me taking some time and space to answer them.

Beginning with language, yes definitely the goal is for our daughter to be bilingual. There are a couple reasons for that. First and foremost is because my family doesn't speak Japanese and my wife's family doesn't speak English. To be a part of everyone's life she needs to be able to communicate. There is also the professional benefit of having native level skills in two languages. I've been studying Japanese for nearly a decade and even though I can do business there is still a clear distinction between myself and a native-speaker. I don't know if I can ever bridge that gap completely. I'd like to give my daughter every advantage I can. And I also think knowing/studying more than one language is valuable to a healthy and satisfying intellectual life.

I am not, however, teaching her Hebrew. I also don't speak either Hebrew or Yiddish. I don't see a need for Julie to learn those because while it is part of our cultural history, we have no living relatives with whom we need to communicate that way. We'd do as well to learn any other language we have historical ties to in my opinion (like Gaelic or Latin, for example).

As far as religion goes, I am not at all religiously Jewish and Japanese religion isn't much like what we're used to in the US. There is a lot of tradition and there are many rituals involved, but it's just something they do, not something they live their whole lives by. There are exceptions of course, because there are certainly monks who dedicate themselves to their spirituality. I'm of the opinion that I'm Jewish no matter what I believe in because any of Hitler's followers would have beaten me to death and shot my kid in the street. I feel it is important to understand things about your own history if for nothing else than to know that people who hate you out of ignorance won't see the difference between a religious Jew and a cultural one.

I can't honestly say what I want to tell her is true about spiritual matters. I may just not bring it up and just teach her morality based on the old "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" axiom. Then if she has questions I'll talk to her about it when she asks. Maybe I'll point her towards what she needs to study in order for her to find a doctrine that she finds satisfying. Essentially, I feel that religion is incredibly personal. It's main role in my own life at least is to cope with the indescribable and majestic mysteries of life and the universe. Sorry to get a little more philosophical there than I'd like, but that's roughly how I'd put my feelings into words on that matter. I want her to figure out what's right for her without me having to overexpose her to my own particular system first.

I honestly can't say if I really think those are all the right ways to go about things. Some people take to their parents' religions very easily. Others rebel against them. But if your kid grows up to be a nice person with a healthy appetite for knowledge and the ability to communicate with the people that matter to them--that's pretty much the best I'd ever hope for.

In any case these are just my opinions and I'm not an expert of any kind. But this is what I came up with when asked to put an answer into words long before I'm ready to put it into practice.

The Wrong Kawasaki: Unlocking Google Barriers with Second Language

There is a lot that can only be learned by reading materials in the original language. You might find plenty on Japanese history or anime in English, but if you want to know what it is like to grow up in Kawasaki and if you want to know why people consider that area dangerous, you have to search in Japanese.

That wasn’t a conclusion that I came to easily. For years I avoided using the net in Japanese where I could. There is so much information in English that it’s not necessary in many (if not most) cases. The wall that I hit was Kawasaki. Apparently I hit it as hard as if I had ridden a Kawasaki motorcycle into it, because bikes were the *only* thing I could get Google to bring up. Well, I'm thankful for it because it got me to step out of my comfort zone and I learned some things that I doubt I'd have found anywhere in English.

Something I am likely to return to many times when I talk about translation and language learning on this blog, is that for a number of reasons elitism and insecurity mingle freely within students of Japanese. Judgmental attitudes are everywhere on the net, in university, on the street, in the bars, cafes and workplaces. Discussing why that is would probably be interesting (and here's a blog post that does so, though I do disagree with her on a number of points), but for now I'm more interested in trying to free myself from it. For my own part, it is relieving to admit that I had a mental block against even trying to use the net in my second language.

I know for some people, making active use of their second language is first nature. But I also know that, like myself, it isn’t natural or automatic for many others. When I taught English as a second language, I found it very difficult to get students using Google in English. I knew it would be a huge benefit to them because of the sheer volume of information available on the internet in English. These days I feel foreign language teachers ought to be able to do, or at the least ought to be learning to do, anything they preach to their students as indispensable. I should have taken my own advice long ago, but sometimes (read, usually) I find that I have to be forced into taking the necessary steps forward.

If you are studying a second language and aren't already doing this, I encourage you to learn new things in your second language. Don't just study the language, but seek out topics that you can learn about for the first time and do so with the vocabulary and grammar you have available to you. Learn the words and structures you need to grasp what you're reading, but focus on the information and what you need to know from it, rather than on the language itself. I think one of the effects of this practice is to learn and be conversant about things you might not be able discuss in your primary language. That was something I encountered for the first time working with transparent circuits, and it is something I'm still studying in English so I can catch up again.

And if you try it and it doesn’t help much, or even if it is just boring, no sweat! Unlike expensive textbooks, finding materials on the net is free!

If you’ve had some experience with this, or even if you think it is total rubbish, let me know in the comments!

Reference, Resource, Research: Bizarre Flower Images

This story I'm working on right now has to with flowers in some respects and I thought I'd share some of more unusual ones that I've found while looking up pics and info about them. Here is the Pinterest gallery that I found which has all the original links to the images. There are a lot of great photos in there that I decided not to repost. Definitely worth a look.

Android Art Apps

 
So far I have only picked up the one I already knew about, SketchBook Pro. Any residual disappointment in the pre-loaded apps is gone. SketchBook Pro, I am finding to be an excellent drawing experience and tool. At a glance it was a little confusing figuring out where all the tools are and why they're in more than one place, but I think it's just something to get used to. I'll post about it more once I've gotten deeper into it.

Anyway here is a nice list of apps and a run down of the original poster's thoughts on them. Thank you very much to micahganske for putting together the original post.

It can be hard to find the right software in Android and the apps suggested by the Wacom Reccomends app are not that great. I want to also say that until we get a feature complete version of Wacom's Bamboo Paper that is compatible with the Hybrid, we're missing a big piece of the digital sketchbook puzzle. Right now the Android version of Bamboo Paper is crippled (when compared to the iOS version) and is exclusive to Samsung devices. Not cool Wacom. You've entered the Android ecosystem so it's time to support it fully!

Anyway, here are the apps that I've found are great with the Hybrid:

Layer Paint HD: This is currently in beta but can be purchased in the Play store. It's the best app hands down for hi-res line art as it will let you work in just about any resolution you want. I've been working on 6000x4000 pixel images and it's smooth and responsive. If you want to do more in-depth painting at that size, you'll run into issues as the brushes don't go up to really huge sizes, but for pencil/pen simulation at super hi-res, it's absolutely fantastic and the dev is quickly updating and improving the app. There has been 3 upgrades in the last week for instance.

ArtFlow: This is a fantastic app with a beautiful UI. I really love it but the problem (right now) is that it crashes on the Cintiq. There is currently an issue that causes it to crash when touch input and stylus input happen too close together. It will be a wonderful app for the Hybrid eventually though. I've been emailing with the dev and he's eager to get it all working smoothly. Right now it only supports 2556x2556 canvas sizes but he's also planning on upping it to 4096x4096 soon.

Clover Paint: This app is sort of crazy. The UI is really awkward but it offers unlimited resolution for canvases and is EXTREMELY customizeable. You have more control over brush settings that you do in desktop Photoshop which is bananas. It also has a really nice brush engine. Definitely not for everyone but an interesting option to be sure if high-res artwork is what you're looking for.

Infinite Painter: This is a nice app if you want to simulate real-world type painting. Honestly, if I want to do detailed color work I'll connect to my pc and use photoshop though. This works well with the Cintiq but with a limited canvas resolution.

Sketchbook Pro: Everyone already knows this app but I'll put it in here anyways. This isn't my favorite app as I find the UI to be really slow to use, but it does work perfectly with the Hybrid. The issue for me is that it's limited compared to the iOS version and is also has a limited max canvas size.

Paperless: This app isn't very good but I'll include it since it's the only app in the Play store that tries to pull off a "Paper by 53" style. It's very mediocre when it comes to it's brush and line quality though. I really just wish Paper by 53 would come out for Android. Or Bamboo Paper...



Apps to Avoid (for drawing and painting)

Photoshop Touch: It has a terrible brush engine. Simply awful. It's okay for basic photo editing and collage though. Just very disappointed in it.

Wacom Cintiq Companion Hybrid First Impressions

No, really. The first of my first impressions, even. I had some things to do last night and setup actually took a little longer than I had expected so I didn't have as much time with it as I had hoped. I'll just hit a few points as they occur to me for now.

Size and Dimensions:
I don't have much to say about this because I don't think it matters all that much if you need the device's functionality. Though as far as first impressions go, I was pretty surprised at how thin it was.

Drawing and Writing:
The accuracy and sensitivity are incredible. I was really surprised because I've never used anything remotely as accurate. SketchBook Pro on my iPhone is also precise, but I don't have a stylus for it and the screen is small, so I still haven't used it for much other than to let my friend's kid play. The matte finish on the screen feels really fantastic as well. I wouldn't say it feels exactly like paper, but gloss would have made for a much less enjoyable experience.

Using the preloaded applications I felt a little let down. Just as I had read, they are as bare bones as it gets. There is a serious lack of tools and functionality. I've heard for Android apps that SketchBook Pro is a great buy and I saw some people talking on the Wacom EU forums about something called Artflow, but I have yet to check it out. I kind of get what I had read to be the consensus anyway: in mobile mode preliminary work is not a problem, but it's not really possible to take an illustration from start to finish without plugging into a PC and loading up a graphic art suite.

Android:
I've never used an Android device before. Navigating menus was smooth and comfortable, more so than I had anticipated. Using a device with all my Google apps and data integrated is the cake-taker though. I had sort of forgotten that this would be the case and was ecstatic when it prompted me to load all my Chrome bookmarks and my Google account. I think I'm going to really like this.

I'm going to buy a card for Google Play today so I can pick up some sketching apps. After the Sony Playstation Store hack and credit card info scare I stopped using credit to buy apps online or I would have downloaded some last night. I'll post about it when I get into some of the other mobile apps.


Edit: Probably the first thing I noticed were the little rectangular insulators you can see in the screen. I used to wonder what that grid of dots was before I worked for Micro. Now I know they're insulating bridges that allow current to pass through the X and Y axis without shorting out. Depending on the touch panel they might be clearly visible or maybe not at all. Some designs don't have them, but I haven't personally worked with those. Just a neat tidbit in case you've ever wondered about those as I did.

Interview with Aviva Gittle

Recently Ms. Aviva Gittle featured me on her blog with an interview. I just wanted to take a moment to finally link to it here and to say thank you for all her hard work. There is a discount coupon for Bear with Me in the interview which is good for 25% off until Christmas. Oh yeah and speaking of holidays, happy Chanukkah, ya'll!