Link to Government Report on Lack of Scientific Standards in Government Reporting

Want to put an unedited link to this for reference.

I mean, I'm not surprised, but I am surprised. And I'm sure this is going to get "explained", and swept under the rug. This is a government organization reporting on the lack of scientific standards in reporting from government organizations:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104613.pdf

One of the reasons I'm not surprised is that scientific standards are a lot harder than most people who bandy the phrase about seem to think. (Not really any easier to pin down than "religious standards".)

 

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

There's a rather ironic saying in the southern states of the USA --

Beauty is only skin deep.

Ugly is to the bone.

What you have to recognize when you hear someone say this is that they are presenting a partition they have heard: 

Divide this world into beauty and ugly.

That's it. Nothing else. 

It's the partition of the advertising world. 

And those who say this saying are implicitly rejecting what the advertising world calls beauty.

The beauty used in this world to sell stuff, the beauty that goes on with cosmetics or with personal training or whatever, that's only skin deep.

If that's what beauty is, maybe it's interesting for a little while, but it's not what they want. It's not what we really want.

Maybe I was up too late when I originally posted this to a Facebook group, but I've had plenty of sleep since then. It's still meaningful.

Watch what you buy and what you believe.

True beauty is what the salescrew calls ugly, because they can't make a profit on it.

Are You Meeting with Acephobia? Do People Say You Must Be Asexual? Unemotional?

(This is for people who get questioned over their lack of interest in sex.)

Don't ever believe that you don't have human emotions. Whoever tells you that is either lying for their own power or gain, or trying to use metalanguage you don't use to say something else. 

You can hope for their sake it's the latter, but that's not your problem. Just don't believe them.

The whole social conversation about sex is so skewed that you really can't tell what people are trying to say any more. People claim to be gay or lesbian or even bi-sexual, and yet they claim not to be practicing -- not sexually active. 

Maybe I'm being obtuse, but how can they know if they even have preferences if they don't? It's like saying you prefer the 68000 over the 80x86 (microprocessors) when you've never programmed either. Or like saying you prefer caviar to foie gras when you can't afford either. 

(Okay, the expensive food analogy reveals something about me that some might call bias. Cancel that. Even the CPU analogy will meet criticism, unless you understand that, in my opinion, low-level computer programming is a hobby everyone should try. Hmm. Every analogy I can think of falls a bit short.)

So some people claim to affiliate with the cause of the LGBQT community as a matter of principle more than practice. 

There are other people who claim to be defending the rights of the homosexually inclined, but they themselves are practicing bi-sexual. What do they mean?

Machiavelli and de Sade were not the first, nor were they the last, to assign far more meaning, and less, to sex and gender than can be justified.

It can be sort of understandable sometimes. For too many people, the hormonal flux is the only thing they've experienced that makes them feel good about either themselves or life. Maybe nobody ever hugged them except to try to force them to feel better. Or maybe words of praise were always attached to conditions. Or some other such. So many ways we pervert natural affection.So many ways we pervert love.

There are many ways to express human affection, so many colors. I think that affection which is dependent on gender, on rank in society, on social affiliation, on family connection, or on similar external stuff tends to be tinged with gray. 

Affection of vibrant colors and tints will be born of caring about the other person as a person, not as a member of some artificial group.

Anyway, human emotion has lots of colors. Lots more colors than human sexuality, even.

(And the rainbow flag is now often being used to mute those, even. If you wave it, please be careful not to use it to mute others' colors.)

(Originally published in my talk-about-sex blog: https://joel-rees-about-sex.blogspot.com/2022/02/are-you-meeting-acephobia-do-people-say.html.)

 

何か発生すると、削除！

------（２週間前）------

ライン共　　　しっかりしろよ

「何かが発生すると、削除！」

と言う安全性への姿勢（セキュリティポリシー）は安定でも安全でもセキュアでも何でもないやんか

だから、ラインペイポイントなど、なんかの価値がないに等しいと思うしかない。

（ごめん）

ラインのグループが連絡網でした。友達のリストを作り直す暇がない。それがなくなると一番困る。

組と相手の情報を継続できるまでやってくれへんだからこそ、ラインに金なんか任されへん。

わかるかな？

------

というのは、乗っ取られたと言われて、ラインのアカウントが自動的に削除されたようです。乗っ取られたようなことあるはずはなかったけど。

（ああ、明日予定のビショップとの面接はライン上できません。 Zoom でやるしかないかな。直ぐに eメールしないといけない、な。）

------（数日後）------

面接は Zoom上できました。

一応、ラインに連絡して、返事を待っていました。

ラインに依存したくないな。まだ使い続けるほど信頼するかどうか決められません。

------（結局）------

屈服

教会との連絡はラインがなければ難しい、とのこと。

また、ライン（適当な侮辱こちらに想像して）らはアカウントの意味がなんとなくわからないようで、全部のアカウント情報を削除（だけど本当は中途半端なの削除）してから登録し直しました。それ以外の手がわからなかった。

（苦笑） 

削除のボタンを押してから、バックアップの手順がどこかに秘めているようなメッセージが届いた。はっ。削除のボタンを押してからだった、な。

（そう、よ。中途半端。妙に残っている。タブレットの前の電話番号を現在もらっている電話会社の客さんがもしかして、その妙に残っているような情報が見えるかな？）

原因の説明と成り立て：

1. 以前にタブレットに電話モデムのSIMカードを有効にしていてそのタブレットにラインのアプリ入れてライン連絡ように使っていました。
2. タブレットの契約を安くするために、電話そのものは違う電話会社の貝殻携帯で続けていた。 
3. その後、タブレットがパンパンなって、ラインは使えなくなって、スマホン買った。そして、ラインをタブレットから削除してスマホに移動させた。
4. （タブレットの（電話にならない）電話番号の情報がラインのアカウントに残ってたようです。）
5. 去年の秋頃その毎月払っていた３千円がもったいなく、シムの登録をその電話会社に返納しました。（関連情報を削除する必要があるということがわからなく、そんなあるはずとは期待もしませんまま。）
6.  数カ月後、その電話番号が誰か、違う人に使用されることになって、その方は矢張りラインに登録しました。
7. ラインがその登録を「怪しい！」と判定し、予告も容赦もなくイキナリボクのスマホの登録までさえ、取り消してくれました。セキュリティです、と。 

あのね。ライン共よ。デザイン上の DOS という意味がわかりません？ Denial Of Service. 提供される供給を客さんの依頼無く切断。ネットの悪奴らがマルウェアを利用してやるようなことを、このサービスを提供する御社がわざわざやってくれています。

だから、情報がパ、と、文句を言わしてもらいます。

さて。家の娘に頼んで家族のライングループに招待してもらって、家族に回復。

だけど、職場や教会は対面しないと回復できません。

ああ、それは理由がある。以前に参加していたグループを検索するに、ライン社は年齢確認を要求する。…

その年齢確認はね、携帯電話の受話器のパスワードを（courgh）ラインのアプリが出してくれている画面に（...）入力しないと行けないのです。

つまり、ライン社のアプリにそのパスワードを任せるのです。

預けるのです。

良い、ね。いいね。ライン社を信頼してるよね。

not.

というわけで、ラインでの連絡ができなくなった私の友達、ごめんけど、顔と顔を合わせることができるところまで、FBでも携帯電話でも、eメールでもお願いします。（Twitterはそれほど使っていないけどツイッターでも。）ラインはしばらく、ごめんください。

------

（友達の観察ボット GIFへの返事： ）

Probably not inappropriate, but I still don't like typing my password for one service and tool into a dialog offered by another service and company that I have discovered I have reason not to trust.

I know, I know, we have nothing to protect and no way to protect it anyway, but you have to set limits and this is one of the places I choose to set mine. 

（和訳）不適切でもないかも。ただ、一つの供給サービスのパスワードを信頼できないとわかってきている別の供給会社のアプリが差し出してくれるダイアログに打ち込むのが兎に角、ためらうもの。 

まさにわかっている。何ひとつも守るべきものもないし、たとえあったとしても守る手段もない。保護できない。だが、線をどこかに引かなあかん。こいところにボクが線を引くことにしています。

More Driving in Japan, and Some about Why I Live Here

Here's an intersection I regularly pass through, looking north. I passed through it on my bicycle today and thought, well, I drive through lots worse than this every day. Let's take a picture and post it. (If I were driving, I'd be on the left side of the road, not the right side where this picture was taken from.) It's a little weird, but not so weird here.

Unless you're looking really closely, it looks like a psi (Ψ) intersection. 

But hidden over on the left is another road:

This is looking west.

Here's what it looks like across the intersection, looking south.

Here's a rough diagram of the intersection:

 

(You may note that it looks something like the intersection where I got ticketed several months back. Not really, but sort of. 

On that one, the crossing roads are offset from each other, and there is a crosswalk between with a light, and, in spite of the shape of the roads, the main road goes straight instead of curving to the left. And there is the major intersection to the west that often becomes the locus of traffic snarls. Maybe I should draw a diagram of it and insert it in that post. Not today. I have other things I think I need to do.)

No, this is not a "LOOK HOW TERRIBLE JAPANESE ROADS ARE!!!" post. If I wanted to do that, this is not the poster child intersection I'd use, by far. And that is not what I want to say, so I'm not going to take the time to run out to where I work and take pictures of the three or four or five locations that I think are most dangerous on my daily mail route. Be aware that, compared to those, this intersection is no problems at all.

What I want to say is, well, it's going to take me a few paragraphs, please bear with me.

When I first came back to Japan with my wife, I thought I was a pretty decent driver. Not that I thought I was equal to the roads and traffic in Osaka, but I thought I was pretty good at it. Two years driving as a job in the States in addition to what, fifteen, sixteen years of regular daily driving? You know, pride.

I knocked around for a couple or three months looking for work, then friends at church gave me some of their private English students they didn't have enough time to teach. But that was out in the country, and I was teaching in their homes, so I had to drive.

So I went and got a Japanese license. 

At the time, all I had to do was go to the local Japan Automobile Federation office and get my existing Stateside license translated, then take the translation to the nearest office of the Hyōgo Prefectural Police that handled new drivers' license applications for foreigners -- the police office in Akashi. 

About four months later, they changed the law, and I'd have had to take the written test. I think that would have been okay, I had looked over the materials, and I was pretty sure I could pass the written test with a high enough score. Probably. But I would have had to study for a couple of weeks first, and I might have not passed on the first try.

Nowadays, they also require a skills test (driving test). That probably would have been okay, too. Maybe not on the first try, though. Probably would have taken me a couple more weeks, which might have been long enough to have missed the opportunity to take over teaching those classes.

Technically, they don't require attendance at a driving school in Japan, even for true first-timers. But they strongly recommend it for those with no driving experience, and it can be difficult navigating through the application process if you don't have a school to prepare your paperwork for you -- even for those born and raised here. At least, that was how it was. 

I should check if it still is.

Yes, it still is, as of the date I am writing this. You can skip the school if you can pass the tests, even if you were born and raised here. JAF even has web pages detailing two ways to do it. But it is not easy.

Am I glad I didn't have to do any of that?

Yes. I even consider it a blessing that I was able to avoid the tests. I didn't have time or money to fail either test, much less attend a driving school in Japan.

(A blessing, you say? Wasn't it just a matter of timing and chance?)

Well, when my job search Stateside wasn't going well after graduation and my wife said, let's go to Japan, you can always teach English, I -- 

I don't know how to describe this. It was more than a hunch to me, but agnostics and skeptics would see no reason to call it anything but a hunch.

I knew better than to move to Japan, you see. 

I had spent two years in Japan as a missionary. I knew how different the language and customs are here.

And I understood the difficulties a primary breadwinner would have in a foreign country, living with unfamiliar customs, trying to learn a foreign language for real use -- not just to pass a college exam. That is, I had some idea of just how bad it could be.

I have, at some points, compared it to going back to kindergarten and having to do all that again. 

You get a lot of "You should understand this, with your experience." Then, when the language and the hidden assumptions have you doing what they think is the exact wrong thing, and you don't have the words to explain in their language why it's actually the right thing, they start treating you like a kindergartener. And then some of your coworkers start treating you like deadwood and trying to get rid of you. 

I'm not going to tell you just how bad it got with a couple of the companies I worked for when I was determined not to give up, but it got bad enough to sour me on both software engineering and teaching English.

And I had some idea of how bad it could be from experience. I grew up in west Texas, and some of my friends' parents were from the other side of the border. I saw what they experienced. We do the same things to foreigners in the States, even though we have a lot more experience with the melting pot, and we know we should not.

Coming here was completely illogical. Completely against reason. Completely inadvisable.

But I knew I should come with her and I knew it was then, no waiting. 

The license was not the only reason, but it's the only reason I'll bring up here today.

Call it a hunch. Call it guidance. Call it inspiration. Call it revelation. Call it crazy.

It was crazy. Crazy according to the wisdom of man.

No, I do not recommend cross-cultural marriage. Talk to me privately, and I can tell you all sorts of reasons not to do it. 

But God's wisdom surpasses that of mortal man. -- Name those verses? Isaiah 55 and Doctrine and Covenants 1, just off the top of my head. -- I apparently needed this struggle, or something like it. I apparently still need it. Talk to me privately, and I can tell you something about that, too.

Back to driving in Japan, there are all sorts of things that are just different from wherever you learned to drive, unless you learned here. Driving on the left is not even the beginning of it. (Use your horn to say, "Thanks"?)

Those first two years, when I was driving around to teach English, I really was not driving wrong -- or it wouldn't have been wrong in (most of) the US. But I was lucky. No, I had angels watching over me, to keep me from doing myself and others harm by what I didn't understand. 

No, I'm not talking about the time I went on the off ramp and found myself facing traffic. 

Well, I had protection that time, too, and the mistake was partly a result of not being familiar with the roads enough to recognize I was reverting to the US side of the road before I actually made it onto the highway. So I guess I'm talking about that time, too.

But driving for the Post Office these last two years has given me an appreciation for all sorts of little things that work here to make driving here safer and an overall better experience for everyone, many of which would simply not work in the US.

Each country has it's own road rules. 

If I had had a chance, had the time and money, I think I would have liked to have gotten my license here the way my wife did -- take a month to go to driving school and take the practice tests, both driving and written. If I had the time and money now, it would be nice to go back for the equivalent of a commercial license, although I really do not want to drive 20 ton trucks for a living here. It would be a chance to learn more of the language, both verbal/written and non-verbal/non-written, and it would help me figure out better what to do when I get in awkward situations.

On the other hand, constant awareness that I should avoid awkward situations is not a bad strategy at my age, either. 

And, back again to Pharisees and the habits we humans tend to have of depending too much on rules, life is full of stuff where we don't have time or other resources to take the path that appears most optimal. 

We shouldn't deliberately make things harder on each other by choosing less optimal paths when we have a choice, but when the most optimal path is not available, it's better to take a path that is available.

And (as my wife says, I always say one thing too many) this, by the way, is the difference between "The perfect is the enemy of the good." and "Human ideals are no match for the wisdom of God."

ベランダから、日の暮れにお月さまと金星さま The Moon and Venus from the Veranda at Sunset

妻の提案、 sunset （日本語で何だった？忘れた、太陽の暮れるところ。調べたら出てくるやろう。調べたくない。ああ、）夕焼け、日没時の写真。

 左上の隅、物干し台の上に微かに見える月さま。拡大すると三日月だとわかる。携帯は矢張り、星等がきれいに映らへん。

 

外に出て、月の左上にまた星が見える。（調べたらわかるだろう。調べたくあらへん。）美星ではなく、金星だそうです。Venus. 美星にはなっているはずではない？だって、美の女神だっただろう？愛美神？さあ。

拡大するとぶれて、丸には見えへん。

正に、皆様のブラウザーの負担にならないように、縮小して投稿しています。元の解像度でも一緒。しかたない。ぶれたからです。

明日もまた郵便配達。

 

[JMR202111091947 -- in English, by request --

Google Translate (LOL):

My wife's suggestion, sunset (What was it in Japanese? I forgot, where the sun goes down. I'll come out when I look it up. I don't want to look it up. Oh) A photo of the sunset and sunset.

The moon is faintly visible on the clothesline in the upper left corner. If you expand it, you can see that it is a crescent moon. The mobile phone does not show the arrows, stars, etc. beautifully.   

-----------------

Go outside and see another star in the upper left corner of the moon. (If you look it up, you'll know. I don't want to look it up.) It's not Venus, but Venus. Venus. Shouldn't it be a beautiful star? Because it was the goddess of beauty, right? Aimi God? here we go.

When enlarged, it blurs and does not look like a circle.

-----------------

I'm posting it in a reduced size so as not to burden your browser. Same with the original resolution. it can not be helped. Because it was shaken.

Mail delivery again tomorrow.

 

============

What I (think I) said:

At my wife's suggestion, sunset. (What is that in Japanese? The sun going down. I forget. It should be easy to look up, but I don't want to. Ah, yeah,) 夕焼け (ゆうやけ yū-yake == sunset sky)、日没(にちぼつ nichi-botsu == setting sun -- A photo of the sky painted colors by the setting sun.

The moon is barely visible in the upper left corner, above the laundry rack. If you enlarge the photo, you can see that it is a crescent moon. My phone doesn't take good pictures of the stars, no surprise there.

Going outside, there's another star visible above and to the left of the moon. I'm sure I could find it if I look it up. Don't want to look it up.) Venus. Not 美星 (びせい bisei == beautiful star), 金星 (きんせい kinsei == Venus). Shouldn't it be the beautiful star? She was the goddess of beauty, wasn't she? 愛 (あい ai == love) 美 (び bi == beauty) 神 (じん jin == god) Goddess of love and beauty? Well, ...

If you enlarge it, it's blurred and does not look round.

I'm posting these in reduced resolution so they don't load your browser down too much, but it's the same in full resolution -- blurred. No help for it.

Back to delivering the mail tomorrow.

]

Moving Violation in Japan -- No Left Turn

 Got a ticket for a moving violation while I was out delivering mail a few days back. Here's the controlled crosswalk just before where it happened:

DANGER! DANGER!

I tried pull out the color in the traffic light with GIMP, but there was just too much ambient light for the cellphone camera to pick it out in the original image. The traffic light doesn't really have anything to do with it, anyway.

If you look carefully, there are two roads going left ahead of me here. 

(There's also one more road going right, just beyond the crosswalk, but it isn't relevant to what happened.

Also, I took this picture from the sidewalk, not the microvan I drive. You can see my empty box on its side there on the walk in front of the tree in the image above. 

The traffic officer, by the way, is standing behind the trees so I can take the picture, or perhaps around the corner on the left.)

Here's the first of the roads to the left:

Too tight to park.

This is from the other side of the crosswalk, and now you can plainly see it. The second to the left is a bit more visible on the other side of the trees. Again, the officer is standing either behind the trees or around the corner, to leave me free to take the picture.

This first road to the left is fully legal to turn on. If I were one of the motorbike crew, I'd turn left here and park right in front of the front entrance of that apartment building on the left, where I deliver between twenty and a hundred fifty pieces of mail each day. But I drive a microvan, and it'd block traffic even if I parked half on the sidewalk.

So, like a good driver, I haven't been parking there. I've been going to the next road and turning in, which means I have to walk about forty meters. But I can avoid blocking traffic. 

All good, right?

If you look carefully about the center of the above image, you'll notice a blot of blue. Here's what that blot of blue is:

What is that spot of blue?

I've been missing that sign, almost every day since they gave me this route. (Sometimes I come from the other direction, depending on what I'm  carrying. In that case, this sign doesn't matter.) 

Again, these pictures are from the sidewalk. (I'm not going to take pictures as I drive past. Playing with a camera while you drive is dangerous.) This sign is going to be more visible from the driver's seat of a vehicle. 

Not seeing and paying attention to signs like this in Japan is a no-no.

Here's where I've been turning in to park and deliver the mail, the street the white truck is about to pass, that seems to have the entrance slanting in on the left:

Go straight, young man!

If I took more pictures I could show that there are no one-way signs. This is not a one-way street coming out or anything, so turning left won't have you going the wrong way on the street. If you don't notice that sign, you're thinking that intersection is built for turning left into, right?

Well, that's what I have been thinking for the last six months or so. (My failing to obey that sign was probably part of the reason the officers were there.)

The traffic officer is standing out of the picture here, again, for me. Friendly, but firm. She even pointed up to the sign as I drove past her (about twenty minutes before I took this picture), so I would have a chance to see the sign and change my mind about turning. And not get ticketed.

If an officer is trying to tell you something, try to figure it out as fast as you can.

Here's a close-up of the sign:

Yes, that means you.
No Left Turn!

Straight arrow with no turning arrows means, "Go straight."

"Do not pass Go. Do not collect ..." No, that's a different game.

The kanji beneath it say, 「自動車・原付」 -- "JIDŌSHA/GENZUKI".

That's "AUTOMOBILES and MOTORIZED BIKES" (essentially, all motorized vehicles). 

(How you Latinize/Romanize 「原付」 is a bit subject to vagueries -- By consonant column, the second character is read in the D column, so it would be "GENDUKI" or "GENDZUKI", but the hard D goes away when you read it out loud, so it's usually Romanized as I did above, without the D.)

So. No turns. There's no road to the right at this point anyway, so it means no left turn.

Even though the street is not one-way. Even with the street built the way it is.

Yeah, the sign's a little hidden in the trees. But I've been driving past that sign every day. I've even been walking beneath it going and coming every time I park back there.

Somehow, maybe because of the construction of the road, I've just not been seeing that sign -- or maybe not been paying attention to it or not thinking that it must mean me, too.

Well, so I have to go pay a JPY 7000 fine today. Don't have to appear in court if I pay the fine. (Would I try to contest it? More below.) Just drop by a Post Office or Bank and they can transfer the money for me.

Oh. And I'm two points down for a few months. Gotta be extra careful now.

No. Points or no points. I can't afford the USD $70 equivalent any more than I can afford points. I've gotta be more careful, period.

(Oh, and, in addition to the fine, the Post Office (my employer) requires me to write a little 「始末書」 -- "shimatsu-sho"  => "take-care-of-it-note" -- a semi-formal hand-written note (in Japanese) that briefly explains that I got the ticket, that I understand why, and that I'm committed to not making the same mistake again. Unfortunately, the 始末書 will have an effect on my bonus, as well. Part of the reason I'm writing this is to help me figure out what to write in that note. Brief. Not detailed like this post at all.)

I got lucky a little later that day, and had to stop for the crosswalk signal coming from the opposite direction, right in front of the intersection in question. There was just enough time to pull out my cell phone, flick the camera on, and get this without taking the picture while I was actually moving:

Right turn okay, but watch out for pedestrians and bicycles.

(Yeah, I know. Taking pictures while stopped at a light is not something to get in the habit of doing, either.)

If you're seeing it like I've been seeing it for the past six months, there doesn't seem to be any hint of a reason for unusual controls on the intersection. It's nice and wide, and even wider coming in from the direction I had usually been coming in from.

Again, if I took more pictures, I could show that there is no sign controlling turns when traveling in the direction I was traveling when the crosswalk signal stopped me and I took this picture. Right turns in from this direction are perfectly fine, as long as you properly yield to pedestrians and bicycle riders.

Bicycle riders --

If you notice, even though I've blurred out the faces and other identifying details, there are four young school-age guys riding bikes in this picture.

This intersection is on a piece of road between an academic/shopping/light industry center and a major shopping center. Both are several hundred meters away, but the foot and bicycle traffic are both pretty heavy here. I've even had the presence of mind to think there should be more controls on the intersection because of the foot and bicycle traffic. 

But I guess I was thinking of traffic lights, not no-turn-left signs.

Upshot? Moral? Lesson?

A year and a half ago, when I started this job, I hadn't driven regularly for some ten years or so. Just making sure I didn't do anything overtly dangerous while I was getting the mail out was pushing my limits. Luckily, I didn't have too many of these more obscure kinds of traffic control situations to deal with back then. 

I've had a lot of help from co-workers and management on this job (and God), or I wouldn't have made it through the first year without getting a lot of tickets like this.

Now I've got to look harder for those blue signs while I'm driving, and be more careful to read and understand them. And watch and learn more about the less-obvious road conditions.

Either that or get my block-buster (cough) novel finished and make scads of money (cough) on my writing so I don't have to work this job to pay rent and put food on the table.

Sigh.

Better focus on understanding those road signs more better. Uhm, more carefully. Better.

(English is my native tongue. Really. Or maybe Texan.)