Question

Of the following sorting algorithms, which has a running time that is LEAST dependent on the initial ordering of the input?

(A) Insertion sort
(B) Quicksort
(C) Merge sort
(D) Selection sort
(E) Shellsort

The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

These are some winners I like :)
Some people may think it's silly but actually I think it's very creative.

MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.
REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
REFERENCE: "Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production," Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
REFERENCE: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature, vol. 450, 1075-1078

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”

Super robot

Robotics company called Boston Dynamics brought out a video of their robot named BIGDOG. As you can see in the video, the robot has 4 legs looking like human's one and it doesn't turn over even though it is kicked by someone or placed on very slippy ground. The robot looks hard working and serious about his job.

PEPSI SHISO

PEPSI brought out its new beverage in Japan. It's named PEPSI SHISO. SHISO is Japanese basil. I bought it today and took a sip... and took a picture of it. It seems that PEPSI sometimes sold unique taste beverage for a limited time only such as PEPSI Cucumber and PEPSI Blue Hawaii although I didn't know them. I think Japanese people like things for a limited time only. In addition, they like things which are limited to a certain area. There are many locally limited version of KitKat for example. You can get many types of KitKat in Japan. Friend of mine from the U.S. always buy unique type of snacks which you cannot get in the U.S when she finds it. Anyway you can experience this new type of beverage from PEPSI in Japan.

Project Natal for XBOX 360

Microsoft brought out its new technology called Project Natal that is actually marker-less motion capture system. As you can see in this video, it is just amazing. Based on estimated human's pose, a computer can respond in a different way. XBOX is a video game machine but this technology can be used other than game obviously. For example, human-computer interface, security, gesture recognition , remote control and so on. My analysis of this technology is the following. First, I believe they don't use 2D camera but 3D camera so that foreground of the user can be extracted easily. In addition, depth information is really helpful to estimate 3D pose because different poses can create same silhouette. Second, the program is run on a workstation, not on the XBOX so far. Third, it cannot estimate all of the possible poses because human body's articulation is really complicated. However, likely poses can be specified and most of the case, it is sufficient. Forth, I think it cannot do full pose estimation unless the user is facing to the camera. Handling a rotation is really difficult. I know that in this video they show a game of skateboarding. In that case, I think poses are limited in a certain range. For some games, necessary poses are limited so task become easier. Finally, I believe the user has to wear tight clothes. If the user wear a skirt or ample clothes, it fails to estimate poses correctly. Now I realized that I wrote about negative things of this system but let me make my point clear. This is just amazing technology and might change our lives. I welcome any comment for my analysis.

TED sixth sense technology from MIT Medai Lab

I didn't know much about what TED is but the a technology shown in this video is very fun. A MIT student in the media lab came up with a new human computer interaction system called "sixth sense." The idea is wearing a device consisting of a projector and a webcam and a cellphone. The cellphone is used to get information from the internet and the webcam is used to recognize finger gesture of a person wearing this device and get a digital image of scene in front of the person. The Projector is used to project a variety of things such as characters, images, buttons and so on. The webcam also recognize the image projected. My favorite use of this system is creating a watch on user's wrist and erasing it by finger gesture. The technology used in this system is not particularly new. However, creating and showing a novel concept deserves applause, I think. And I re-realized the importance of the way to show our ideas. Design is also an important factor, I think. That's MIT.

Darth Vader

I am a fan of star wars as many men are. My favorite character is Darth Vader. Actually, all star wars series describe his life, from birth to death. So, he is a true main character from the first one to the last one. I heard that George Lucas was inspired by a Japanese samurai armor. When it comes to Light Saver, which is a Jedi's sword, I guess it was inspired by a samurai sword. And I like the Imperial March, which is a theme song of Darth Vader. Whenever I listen to it, it starts sticking my ear. I think it is one of the best film musics ever created.

Voice of Mickey Mouse dies at 62

Today I heard the news that voice actor of Mickey Mouse died at 62. And I also heard that his wife is voice actress of Minnie Mouse! And they have 5 children! It looks like he is really Mickey. May his soul rest in peace. Here is a brief introduction of Mickey's story.

Sea turtle

I'm going to write about Hawaii again because I forgot to write about an interesting sea creature, a sea turtle in Hawaii. As you can see in this picture, we can see a sea turtle in Hawaii. It seems that we can see a sea turtle with a high probability. So it means that I was not very very lucky guy. It's quite surprising that we can see them easily, isn't it? The reason of it is nothing short of people's effort. In Hawaii, it is strictly prohibited to touch sea turtles. Once sea turtles are found on a beach, guardians rush there and surround the sea turtle by a red rope to define a border. People are not allowed to get in the surrounded area. The way people treat sea turtles is letting them natural. People don't feed them ( it is also prohibited ) but maintain optimal environment for them so that they naturally inhabit there.
I saw a sea turtle try to get on the beach but he/she gave up and disappeared. The way sea turtles swim is very dynamic although their movement on land is slow. :)

Jamie Pugh - Britain's Got Talent - Show 4

I became a fan of this TV show, Britain's Got Talent. I wonder why these talented people had been out of the public eye for a long time. And I envy them who are good at singing. I like singing but I wish I could sing like them. Here in Japan, we have karaoke. Karaoke is a leisure activity which people of all ages enjoy doing. In Japan, there are so many places called "Karaoke box" where we can sing a variety of songs ranging from latest music to traditional Japanese song, "Enka", with background music and lyrics on a TV screen. "Karaoke box" is a small room and we can control lighting and we can order foods and drinks through an intercom attached to each room. Each room has a sound insulation wall so that we don't hear other customers' song. Ah, today's topic is a guy in this video clip. But I don't have to say much about this clip if you see it. An Image ( video ) tells more than words do. ;)

ACADEMIC EARTH

This time, I introduce this interesting website, which offers "Thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars" as it says. As of now, I watched computer science lecture from Stanford and Astronomy lecture from Yale. Both of them are very interesting. Not only contents but also the way teachers teach are interesting for me. All of lecturers are passionate and good at teaching. They are like entertainers. I guess they are supposed to make their lecture interesting, otherwise they may be fired. I think this website is also good for learning English because English used in lecture is basic. In particular, it is good for preparing for TOEFL because some of its questions are given through a lecture about something.

This is a panorama from top of Diamond Head which is a small mountain close to Waikiki. Diamond Head is technically not a ordinary mountain. Actually it is a crater. You can see a shape of the crater clearly from top of it. From Diamond Head, you can see beautiful panorama of Waikiki city.


We joined a guided tour to North shore. North shore is famous for not only big waves but also yummy shrimp. There are many aquaculture pond for shrimp. And there are many vans that offer "shrimp plate" containing shrimps and rice and source. I had never eaten such yummy shrimps. One of its features is source. It is Hawaiian style source, I think. Shrimp in North shore is definitely worth trying! It seems that many customers wrote messages on the van.


It goes without saying that Hawaii is well known for Hula. One thing that I didn't know before going to Hawaii is that typical Hula we imagine is not a traditional dance in Hawaii. It is called modern Hula that was created by foreigner who tried to make Hawaii attractive tourist island. Traditional one is more powerful and spiritual and sacred because it is a ritual while modern one is more relaxing and catchy. I like both of them because each of them has its own feature.

Sea, sea, sea!

Waikiki beach

North shore

me standing on the cliff

Hawaii is definitely well known for its beautiful sea. First picture is famous Waikiki beach. Although it was very beautiful, it was very crowded. In addition, I guess Waikiki beach is not natural but artificial. Second picture is North shore. It is famous for big waves. In winter, strong heaves surge to North shore and create huge and tubular waves. When I was there, I could see relatively big waves and some surfers doing surfing. (See second picture) Of course I'm not good enough to do surfing in North shore. Waves in Waikiki beach looked moderate and good size for me, but sea was very crowded, which discouraged me to do surfing in Waikiki beach...

Duke Kahanamoku Statue

Duke Kahanamoku is generally regarded as the person who popularized the modern sport of surfing. He was also an Olympic champion in swimming. This picture is a statue of him standing in Waikiki beach, Oahu. You can find him easily in the beach. You can also see "live" Duke Kahanamoku here.

Spaghetti tree in Hawaii

Do you think that this is a fallen tree? In fact this is not. This tree is called Spaghetti tree. I'm sure that you understand the meaning of this name. This tree is a dangerous tree for woodsman because when they cut one of the branch, other branch may fall down and hit them unexpectedly. I heard it from my guide while Oahu Nature Tours.

Giant plant in Hawaii

I went to Hawaii last week. I joined a nature tour exploring forest close to Waikiki. On the way, I saw this giant fern, as you can see at the center of this picture. I had seen small fern ever, but I had never seen such a big fern. Here in Japan, we eat small fern but I think the one in this picture is too big to eat...

TOEFL

TOEFL is "Test of English as a Foreign Language." People outside north America have to take this test if they want to enter a university in the U.S.  Full score of TOEFL is 120. TOEFL consists of 4 section, reading, listening, speaking and writing. Each section has 30 points. It is needed to get score higher than at least 100 if you want to enter top universities such as Harvard, MIT and so on. My last score was 89. 25 for reading and listening and 18 for speaking and 21 for writing. As you can see, my biggest problem is in speaking section. I think I have a plenty of opportunities to speak English because I have friends who can speak English and I speak with them almost everyday. In addition, I speak with Filipino almost everyday using skype. It is an online English scool called rarejob. My teachers are all very kind and highly-motivated to teach English. All of them speak English very fluently and I think their pronunciation is almost perfect even though English is a second language for them. I don't know how much effort they have made ever and how much effort I have to make from now to acquire same  level of command... As I mentioned, I speak English almost everyday. However, I found that I need a special training for TOEFL because it doesn't examine conversational skill but logical skill. And it is difficult to get this skill without special training. Now I'm thinking of going special school for TOEFL. It seems that they teach how to get high score. Their method is very simple. They give us several templates of answer. What exam taker do is to list key words in preparation time and fill out templates with those key words. It sounds easy even though I doubt how it will be helpful after you start your life in the U.S. I'll definitely post articles about TOEFL in the future.

A tennis game

I belong to a tennis club of my company. Our team belongs to tennis league where we play against other companies' tennis club. Each league has five teams and we play agains 4 teams. If we can be first position, we can move up to a higher league.  There are 10 grades of league and now we are in 7th league. Last Sunday, I lost first time this season, and today I lost again... I know that one of the reasons that I lost is that I didn't practice enough. But still it is sad when we lose... But I don't have a time to practice... Ummm, what shoud I do...

A suitcase for a trip

I came back to Japan from a trip to Hawaii last Friday. After arriving at the Narita airport, I looked for my suitcase but I couldn't find it. Yes, my suitcase was not delivered to Japan properly! The day after an arrival, a flight company delivered it to my home. However, my suit case was broken! A handle was lost... I'm a little bit happy about this incident coz I can buy a new suitcase. It is a good reason for me to buy a new suitcase. I have been wanting to have Samsonite Oyster suitcase because I think it's design is cool although it was first released on the market a few decades ago. I believe that good design never lose it's brilliance. Unfortunately, we can't buy Samsonite Oyster here in Japane no longer coz they stop manufacturing it. I searched the internet and found out that I can get it in the U.S. through online store. However, it seems that they don't ship it to Japan. Can anyone ship it for me ? :P  Just kidding. There are many companies which receive items you order from online stores in the U.S. and the companies ship them to you. Of course those companies have offices in the U.S.

First Post!

I know I am a person who can't keep writing diary even for a few days but I decided to start blog. First reason is that i think it is helpful for learning English, especially writing skill. Yes, my English is poor so you may feel strange about my Engilsh... Second reason is that i can keep track of my daily life. After several years, if I can keep this blog, this blog will remind me of my past days.

As for the title, it doesn't have any deep meaning. I just like a wallaby coz they are peaceful and lazy animals. In addition, this title has a good rhyme, i think, even though I'm not a rapper..