Out to Sea, One Last Time

   Well, I'm going to keep this post short, mostly because I have to leave to make it the the boat on time in about a half hour.  I will be going out to sea on Monday (although Reactor Department has to come in a day early to start up the propulsion plants) and will be returning Friday.  Of course, the trip to Japan starts the Monday after I return, so keep posted and soon the reason I started writing in the first place will come to fruition.

   By the way, I totally used Japanese for my calculus assignment.  Who would have known that indefinite integration could be used to determine how many kanji a student would learn over a given period of time, based on a statistically derived average learning curve?  I am constantly amazed by how often I see calculus applied in the real world.  Well, as real world as my made up learning curve equation was, but calculus can still be related to learning Japanese.

   So, here is the assignment (I used an image for the part that had equations since Blackboard's equation editor doesn't translate well to plain text):

    Well, I'm cheesy and I cannot think of a great application that doesn't deal with the standard acceleration/velocity/displacement model, so I am going to explore how integration affects the rate at which a student of the Japanese language (or anything else for that matter) absorbs knowledge to a useful degree.  This is also because I am about to go on leave to study in Japan for a month and I have been fervently studying in preparation, so it is pretty much all that I can think of right now.

   Since 漢字 (Kanji, or those evil little squiggly Chinese characters) recognition provides a good model for proficiency as students of Japanese tend to learn more kanji as they become more proficient, I will use that aspect of the language.

  Let us call LR the Rate at which a student learns kanji, K the number of kanji learned, and t is time.
 The rate of being able to learn and recognize new kanji goes down as you learn more kanji, so we will say the average student learns new kanji at the rate of (t/500)^0.5 over a certain period of time.  If a certain student has learned 300 kanji over 500 days, write an equation relating the kanji the student learns to time.

   At the rate this student is learning, he will have mastered all 1,945 joyo kanji (Japan's official list of common use kanji taught in schools) in about 1,639 days, or just under 4 and a half years.  Quite the studious fellow, although all of the above numbers are completely made up and your mileage may vary.  Of course, I have been studying for around 500 days and I know about 300-400 kanji, so maybe one day I will follow this curve.  Of course, this can be applied to any subject: you can determine the learning curve based on statistical data to determine about how much information a student should learn over a specified period of time.

数学はおもしろいですね。　(Math is quite interesting, isn't it?)

Return from Sea, Playing Catch-up

That's me, studying Japanese on the boat.

   Well, I am now back from an 11-day stint out at sea (even though it felt like a month), and it feels really good to be home.  The underway was pretty uneventful, and pretty much consisted of me standing watch, going to training, and doing a lot of studying.  With my trip to Japan coming up in only 2 weeks, I need to sharpen my vocabulary and grammar so that I can perform as well as possible on the Yamasa placement exam.  Hopefully I'll be able to place around lesson 40 in みんなの日本語 (Minna no Nihongo, this is one of the textbooks I use and the textbook Yamasa uses up to the intermediate level classes).

   Now that I am back, though, there were a lot of things that needed to be done.  That is how life in the Navy is when you are attached to a sea-going vessel as part of ship's company -- your life completely stops for those few weeks while the rest of the world keeps revolving.  Deployment was the same way, but I was actually OK with that since you make plans for such a long term absence that you don't normally make when you are only gone for a few weeks.

   First on the list was my calculus class that I am taking online through Excelsior College.  I had planned ahead and took the mid-term prior to going underway (which was a week ahead of the actual mid-term date), but I still had a week and a half worth of homework covering integration due this weekend that I stormed through last night.  It is nearly impossible to do it on the boat since the internet connection at sea is so horrible.  Also, with the next term coming up, I need to apply for TA and register for classes so that I can start on them when I return from Japan (I am planning on taking 3 classes, probably Calculus II and Reactor Plant Materials through Excelsior, and Japanese 2002 through Georgia Tech if they accept my application).  I have to finish that BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology before I get out -- you need a bachelor's degree to participate in Yamasa's graduate diploma program and also to apply for the JET Programme, which are both in my 5-year post-Navy plan.

   Then, there are details that I need to take care of before I leave for Japan.  There are the usual end-of-month stuff like my mortgage and condo fee, bills, and that water bill that sneaks up on me because they bill every 2 months and don't do automatic drafts (it's 2 weeks late because I forgot about it... I should really open my mail more often), but there are also small details that need to be worked out for the trip.  Since my Tokyo weekend is pretty much mapped out, I reserved a hotel in Nihonbashi for July 27 and 28 near where the JDK band will play, which is also a relatively short distance from the Sumida River, the Japanese Imperial Palace, and Akihabara Electric Town.  I need to look into getting train tickets from Okazaki to Tokyo that weekend, but I'll work on that later.  I have no idea what to do for Kyoto, though -- all I know is that I want to go there during one of the weekends.

Now, we just need Namco to bring us Tales of Xillia!

     Well, that is all I have time to write tonight.  Before I head off to dreamland, I have one bit of exciting news that caught my eye yesterday.  In my previous write-up about Ni No Kuni DS, I did not think that the DS game would ever be localized in part due to the luscious "Magic Master" tome that comes with it, but I was wrong (at least partially).  Ni No Kuni DS is still not being localized, but Namco Bandai announced a "Wizard's Edition" for the PS3 version coming in January 2013, and it is available for pre-order at Namco's website.

じゃまたねぇ・・・

Malicious Ignorance in the U.S. Navy

   Hello, everyone!  It has been a week and a half, but that is only because I have spent the last 5 days out at sea where the internet is unreliable at best and Blogger is a blocked site, anyways.  I actually meant to write on the eve of our departure, but I never got around to it.

   During this last underway, an interesting new phrase was coined by the powers-that-be and used against a buddy of mine in my division: malicious ignorance.  What is malicious ignorance, you ask?  Well, let's see what Merriam-Webster has to say about these two words individually:

malicious (adj.) having or showing a desire to cause harm to someone : given to, marked by, or arising from malice

ignorance (n.) the state or fact of being ignorant : lack of knowledge, education, or awareness

   Well, I guess it isn't the first time the military combined two words that contradict one another and coined it as a phrase.  Terms such as military intelligence, government organization, friendly fire, active reserves, and tactical nuke come to mind.  You see, having malicious intent implies that you are knowledgeable or aware of the dire consequences that are behind an action, and do said action anyways.  You set the building on fire and laugh as it burns to the ground.  Ignorance implies that you have no ill will, you were simply not aware of the consequences of an action.  You forgot to turn off the oven and the building caught fire and burned to the ground (and you actually wanted to continue to live in that house -- no malicious negligence involved!).

Shipboard fire party nozzleman fighting a fire.

   What was the action that led to the crucifixion of one of my fellow sailors?  If you thought it was the berthing fire that erupted in the forward part of the ship prior to pull-out, you would be wrong.  Ignorance may have been in play, since the rumor going around is that someone had an unauthorized surge protector that caught the entire compartment on fire, but that was not really a big deal after the fact.  Besides, we don't really know exactly how the space caught fire yet and my department doesn't own any spaces anywhere near that part of the ship.

   Perhaps it was the Ship's Generator watch that lost one of his turbine generators to a hot condenser (which was caused by the watchstander not knowing what was going on in the first place), and then dropping his other turbine generator to a hot condenser when he secured seawater flow to the wrong machine, causing a subsequent loss of power to the ship and a scram of the only operating reactor.  This massive fail caused a huge incident, but really the guy responsible got what is effectively a slap on the wrist: he got removed from standing watch and has to complete a (fairly extensive) knowledge upgrade.  Such ignorance single-handedly delayed the underway by a day on both ends, yet he got off the hook pretty easily.

   Maybe it was the reactor controls technician that destroyed a rod control power supply because he had no idea how to properly energize it for a reactor startup, costing the Navy hundreds of thousands of dollars in parts and hundreds of man-hours to repair it while simultaneously ensuring that we could not restart that reactor for about 20 hours.  He wasn't maliciously ignorant -- he merely had to stay up all night to help repair the damage his ignorance had caused.

   So, if you can catch a berthing compartment on fire, take down the entire plant with your incompetence, or completely destroy an expensive piece of equipment without malicious ignorance being involved, that means that the event that coined this phrase must be quite dire, indeed.  Well, yes, it was quite dire.  Quite dire, indeed.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about my job.

   A watchstander was caught operating a routinely operated valve without looking at it, reading it, and pausing to think first.

   Really, now?  He wasn't doing anything wrong operationally, in fact he was supposed to operate that valve.  It is a big deal because he was caught operating said valve "without any form of control whatsoever" by the RDMC (basically the senior enlisted guy in the department) and 3 MTT inspectors that were observing us.

   Now, the nuclear Navy's "Point, Read, Think, Operate" policy is great for controlled evolutions or operations that are not done frequently, but it shouldn't be such a big deal for normal, routine operation, and if you are going to get caught violating PRTO it should be effectively a slap on the wrist.  Instead, the guy that was caught was threatened with punitive action and the topic dominated discussion among the senior chain of command above everything else that happened.

   If you are not in the nuclear Navy, this probably makes little sense, so here is a good analogy:  it is like reading a newspaper with a front page headline of "MAN CAUGHT DRIVING WITHOUT WEARING SEATBELT" followed by a murder on page 3 and a bank robbery and page 7.  That is one of the fundamental problems with the Navy -- you can be criminally incompetent at your job and not face any real trouble, but small benign issues that cause no real damage will jeopardize your career.

   The only other eventful occurrence of the underway was the meet and greet by former Presidents George Bush and George Bush.  They were on the ship for a whole 5 hours, and then they left.   I didn't get a chance to participate, though, since I was busy.  Anyways, more to come later.

じゃ、またね。

Why does writing have to be so..... hard?

 I have decided that I want to start writing a blog -- you know, chronicling my experiences and publishing my thoughts on all of the issues that matter to me.   It's not that I expect anyone to read or care about what I have to say, I just want to feel like people read and care about what I say.  This is actually something I have wanted to do for a while, but I have had a hard time getting started.  So, here I am, getting started.

 We'll start with the cool things that have happened in my life recently.  First of all, I have just come back from being underway (at sea) for 3 weeks.  I should have known that being in the Navy would put me out to see more than I would be at home, but I digress.  Two really awesome developments occurred while I was gone, both having to do with Japan. (Well, there was another event as well, but I could not enjoy it until I returned home). 

  Firstly, we had a special visitor on board for about a week.  No, it wasn't George H W Bush -- he will be going underway with us next month.  It was 東野俊英　(Captain Toshihide Higashino) of the Japan Air Self Defense Force.  He is a flight surgeon studying medicine on naval aviation platforms (such as our aircraft carrier) in a kind of personnel exchange program between the United States Navy and Japan.  Now, I wasn't going to let the opportunity to practice conversing in Japanese go to waste, so I paid medical a visit several times to talk with him.  Surprisingly, I was doing alright speaking in Japanese, although I had to say 「もう一度言ってください。」(Please repeat that) and 「もう遅く話してください。」(Please speak more slowly) quite a lot.  I think after studying Japanese at Yamasa, my speaking and listening ability will become significantly better.

Nagoya Castle, which is close to where I will be staying.

   Which brings me to the second event of pure awesome.  My leave request to study at the Yamasa Institute in Okazaki, Japan for 32 days has been approved!  I will be in Japan from July 16 through August 16 to study in the SILAC program (the Short Intensive Language Acquisition Course).  For those of you who do not know about Yamasa, it is an extremely well-reviewed language school in a small town outside of Nagoya, Japan.  You can find out more about it at Yamasa's website or by reading one of the many student blogs out there about the school.  This trip is part of the reason that I wanted to start writing; I want to report my experiences when I finally do go to Japan.

You will be sorry.

   Lastly, while I was gone the season 2 finale for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic aired.  I was upset that I wouldn't get to watch it until returning home, so I was really excited when I finally got to watch the 2-episode special (3 weeks late...).  The finale was absolutely epic, and really showcases the writing and animation talent behind the show.  Most notably, however, was Daniel Ingram's original song "This Day Aria", which was one of the best villain songs I have ever heard.  It is right up there with Scar's song from The Lion King and "Mother Knows Best" from Tangled.  It is no surprise that two of the songs from this season have been nominated for a Daytime Emmy.  I've included the Youtube video for the song, but I wouldn't watch it if you plan on seeing the episode.

    Well, that is all for today.  This is really long for a first post, but I guess the beginning is when most people would have the most to say.