Obāsan

It's been almost 4 months since I arrived Japan and I have managed to get one person to look at me and say hi in the corridors. She is one of the cleaning staff, she is around 60 years old. A friendly old lady (Obāsan) with very little care in the way of formality, and dedicated to her job.

I went to the toilet a few weeks ago.  When I was washing my hands, Obāsan came in and immediately started scrubbing one of the urinals, while another man was using another urinal nearby.

Unmanned Air Vehicles

It's been 10 days since the big earthquake/tsunami in Japan and the following problems at the nuclear power-plant. Things seem to be improving now, and the reactors are slowly getting under control. The biggest trouble with the reactors was overheating, and the initial efforts in cooling the reactors down involved dousing them by seawater via aerial vehicles; i.e. helicopters. However this was not as easily done as it sounds because of the high radiation levels around the power-plant. The helicopter needed to be right above the power-plant in order to drop seawater for cooling, but this meant the crew had to be exposed to high radiation levels. In fact the mission was aborted a few times because of the dangerously high radiation levels. But then if the reactors were not cooled down the risk of a bigger radiation leak was there.

In short, people had to get to the reactor in order to tame it but then they could not get there because it was dangerous. Kind of a catch 22 situation. A lot of people who knew this situation must have thought what I have; what about robots? what about UAVs? Japan is famous for all the cool robots; bipedal, lifelike, violin playing, etc. I always had the impression that long-range, remotely controlled, high precision robots were available for entering dangerous areas like Fukushima power-plant and carrying out the tasks we do not want. I guess I was wrong. Even if we forego the high-precision side of things how hard would it be to have a large robot that can function as an unmanned fire-truck? 

  US military robots. 

Photo by U.S. federal government.

On the other hand, it seems possible to produce robots that can carry heavy artillery to rain bullets and bombs on terrorists of various kinds, but not water? But then again, what about UAVs? US and Israel has loads of UAVs that can destroy a village without any problem, why not carry water? Either the Japanese government and Tepco was very stupid about not making use of robots and drones or more likely there are none that would have been useful. It's simply sad to see the technological priorities of our time.

   "Reaper" - UAVs are good at destroying. 

Photo by U.S. federal government.

If Japan could have used robots and UAVs , some individuals would have been spared the high doses of radiation hits they had to receive. Also, there may not have been a reason to have the heroic Fukushima 50, and this whole situation with the nuclear plant might have been under control much quicker.

"More than 40 people were killed in Pakistan last week in a US drone attack..." 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12784129

Could this technology been altered to save more than 40 people?

Japan Earthquake Day 3

It has been 3 days since the massive earthquake off the north coast of Japan. The aftermath keeps getting worse and worse than as it seemed initially. Large number of aftershocks, tsunamis and now a meltdown at a nuclear power plant. The world has certainly focused on the disaster in Japan, and there seems to be a lot of fuss. My mom just told me that on a Turkish TV channel "experts" were discussing the possibility of drifting radioactive particles reaching Turkey, and the worst possible health implications.

Contrary to all the extreme drama being played on some of the international news stations, the Japanese news agencies seems to be playing things down. There are no news reports about the poor kids losing their parents, people drifting down the powerful tsunami streams or even anyone crying. I have not watched much TV though, so this is my impression only from less than couple of hours of TV time.

                No such frames seemed to appear on the Japanese TV © RECORDED PICTURES

The life here in Kyoto (approx. 800km from the epicenter) is no different than it was before the disaster, and everybody seems calm. There is plenty of goods and services for everybody, which is contrary to the situation up north, and nobody seemed to worry about the nuclear meltdown.

A Lecture about Research Experience in Japan

Today was the first day of a 3 day long orientation session for the new JSPS postdoctoral fellows (like me). The session featured talks such as;"Introduction of JSPS",  "Japanese Research System and JSPS's Activities",  an enthusiastic lecture on "The Japanese Language and its Cultural Context", "Introduction of JSPS Science Dialogue", a lecture by JSPS second year fellow "About Research Experience in Japan", and "Introduction of JSPS Alumni Associations".

The last talk was reduced from 20 minutes to 5 minutes. This was due to the previous talk lasting 45 minutes instead of 20! It was a fantastic display of self promotion without any boundaries, done in a very entertaining way. It was an incredible talk, and I want to name the person who gave the speech as I believe his CV may have something to teach us people pursuing a career in academics.

The aforementioned speaker is Dr. Sulayman K. Sowe:  http://www.merit.unu.edu/about/profile.php?id=1110&stage=2. A remarkable showman, and a determined academic on his way to becoming a professor sooner than most of us.

His speech was supposed to be about his research experience in Japan, but this person has been in Japan only 1.5 months longer than us, the people he was lecturing! So, what did he have to teach us that he might have learnt by living here for 45 days longer? Was his experience enough to talk to us about it for 20 minutes? The answer is no. The first thing he did was to admit this and simply to jump to an introduction of himself. An introduction that highlighted his achievements, and professional experience and lasted for half an hour! The whole time he was very amusing, and he told us what a great guy he is in a very humorous way. A lot of us laughed, some for different reasons, and some of us frowned at the obvious shameless self promotion this guy was doing. After 25 minutes into his talk, one of the Japanese hosts gave him a note in a very discreet and polite way. He took the note and read it out loud: "Please try to wrap up your talk in 1.. minutes", well he actually read 100 minutes just to be humorous (?). He continued his lecture about how awesome he was, and towards the end he told us about the experience he had in Japan , which had nothing new to anybody who has been in Japan for more than 7 days.

One interesting advice he gave us was this; "Don't be a nuisance". He told us to know our limits, and not to expect any negative feedback from the Japanese people as they are too polite to do so. He said; "They will always say, Yes, and will not stop you if you are annoying them." I guess these words reflect the truth, but why should we not bother the Japanese if there is a personal gain?