Exam Saga Continues!

A quick note today: half an hour ago the results of the written part of the entrance exam were published. My number's up! (And I mean it in the literal way.) I will have my interview on Monday morning; if that goes well, I'll be a real Todai student. Wish me luck!

My Friday evening plan: fiddle with TeX and the presentation. My Saturday plan: Game Day in Castle Tintagel. My Sunday plan: go fishing for the first time in ages. My Monday plan: wow the teachers and pass the entrance exam.

Let's hope everything goes according to the plan, eh?

Entrance Exam

Today I had my written entrance exam. I was scared I'd fail like a kanji tattoo, but it seems like it's going to be fine. For those I haven't bored to tears yet, the exam I took had two sections (T and A, I kid you not!). The T section had 5 questions, and the A section had 6. T is mostly basics (maths, computing, physics), while A has some more specialised topics (Internet protocols, programming, logic circuits, GIS...). I had to choose 2 questions from the T group, and one more question from anywhere. However, despite always having been partial to T's, I chose 2 T's and 1 A instead of all three T's. Three T's is just too weird. Anyway, here are the questions, as far as I can recall them, after my 2-hour trial and/or tribulation:

1. {a_n} is a sequence of the form: a_n = a_n-1 + a_n-2, a₀ = x, a₁ = y
   
   
   
   1. There is a recursive algorithm to calculate a_n. Explain it, and show its complexity.
   
   
   2. [a_n, a_n-1]^T can be expressed as a product of Q and [a_n-1, a_n-2]^T, where Q = [ q₁₁, q₁₂ | q₂₁, q₂₂]. Calculate Q.
   
   
   3. Show an optimised algorithm for calculating a_n by using Q. Show its complexity.
   
   
   4. For x=1 and y=3, calculate a₄₈
   
   
   5. {a_n,m} is a sequence where a_n,m = a_n-2,m + a_n-1,m mod m. Show {a_n,m} is cyclic.
   
   
   6. What is the period of a_n,3?
   
   
   
   


2. There is a test by Alan Turing that determines the quality of artificial intelligence systems.
   
   
   
   1. What is its name?
   
   
   2. Describe it (in about 5 lines)
   
   
   3. In about 15 lines, describe its influence and criticisms, using these words:
      Loebner prize, common sense, John Searle, speech recognition, Chinese Room, natural language processing, Eliza
   
   
   
   


3. In C,
   
   
   
   1. define the sort function of signature: void sort(int array[], int n).
   
   
   2. for a structure List { List *next, int v }, define the reverse function of signature: List *reverse(List *list).
   
   
   
   

I think I didn't do too badly. I'm pretty sure I aced the TOEFL two weeks ago, and that I'm over the threshold with the current offering. And if I am, I'll probably do well on the interview next week, since I'm told they'll be asking me about my research plan. And I know in quite a detail what I want to research. The quotas are not too bad either, despite what I thought before: 45 candidates for 19 places is not too bad. So even if I don't manage to pass, I'm satisfied that I did the best I could, and didn't make a monkey or a cabbage out of myself.

Week of the Four Elements

Yesterday, during a Game Day, there was an earthquake. Not just any earthquake; it was reported as 6.9 on the Richter scare. However, we were lucky that it was 320 km away and 340 km deep (making it about 457 km from here, and making me smart enough to pass the math test if they only ask me about Old Man Pythagoras). Where we were, it came down to shindo 4 (shindo being a Japanese scale of earthquake intensity, read all about it on Wikipedia). I was on a 2nd floor (by Japanese reckoning) of a sturdy 2-floor building, so it felt like a 1-2 minute long amusement park ride. Don't worry, I'm okay. You're reading my blog, for crying out loud!

As if it wasn't enough, I hear they're planning a typhoon for tomorrow. I've been warned not to shop in underground malls.

Going back in time, last week I went to see fireworks. Twice. Once on Sunday eight days ago, and once on Thursday four days ago. The former was with Edogawa Boardgame Club, the Japanese group that kind of adopted me, and we had a large reserved space on Edogawa bank to lie and watch the magnificent skies. The latter one I went with my Komaba friends and their Komaba friends, and we each rented our own plastic square meter for ¥2000. (Actually now that I'm writing about it, might be even less than 1 m.sq.) The price included listening to a concert, and explosives. It was kind of steep, but worth it. Then, since we were already spending, we proceeded to a karaoke bar. Good day, all in all. I learned a Russian song. Well, the chorus, anyway.

EDIT: Wot4E continues. I was woken today at 5:09 am by another quake. This one wasn't as bad here as the last one, but I wasn't in a sturdy 2-floor house today. Also, sensors say Shizuoka region fared much worse from this 6.6-pointer, as it was only 20km deep, and much closer to the land. No amusement park ride this time.

The Soft Drink Incident

After a long time of life more-or-less as usual, another culture shock. A bad one. I'm still traumatised as I'm writing this.

Yesterday, I was in Akihabara Donki, and I found Ramune in their fridge.

Ramune is a soft drink well known to many anime otaku, so being at least somewhat related to them, of course I've been wanting to try it. But so far I've only found it in two restaurants so far, never in a shop - so I immediately decided to buy it. However, it was just next to the cash register, and I was next in the line, so I just grabbed the nearest bottle - the red one.

When I came back home, and realised I was thirsty, I remembered the Ramune I bought, and started to open it. Now the Ramune bottle is a bit strange, and there are numerous Youtube clips demonstrating the proper way to open it. Basically, it has a marble inside, and you have to push it in with a provided instrument; then you turn it so that the marble gets stuck between two "reefs" in the bottle before tilting the bottle to drink or pour (otherwise the marble gets in the way again and stoppers the bottle from the inside). What I forgot was that Ramune has a tendency to spray when opened. It of course did, and I did the only thing I could think of - I popped the top into my mouth, in order to avoid spraying Ramune all over my room (or at least mitigate it, since I was not quite quick enough).

Bad mistake.

My reading is still quite slow - in Croatian or English, I can't not read something if I see it, reading is automatic and subconscious. Not so with Japanese - I have to invest effort and time, even if it is just a couple of words it will not be automatically processed. So only then I finally paid attention to the label, and what I saw horrified me, almost as much as the one gulp I got.

キムチ風ラムネ

or, Kimchi-style Ramune. Who does not know what Kimchi is, look it up on Wikipedia or something.

Next to that, a picture of garlic and chili - and yes, you can taste them both, and very strongly.

Anyway, it's the most godawful drink I've ever had the misfortune to have in my mouth. It's positively vile. I've even done some research on the net, and most people agree that even people who like kimchi (I'm not one of them) think it's vomitworthy. Some people probably remember the dream tea that Oz brought back from America. This is worse. If I had to choose between a glass of dream tea every day for a month or a glass of Kimchi Ramune once, I'm going with the tea. So you people who remember that can kind of get the intensity of my feelings on this subject.

Now I'm quite pissed off, because, a) how can anyone produce something like this? and b) since it's being sold, some SOB is actually buying it!

That's not the end of the story though. Today I related the story to one of my lab friends, who is kind of an experienced Japan-dweller, Nihon-sensei kind of person. When I came to the middle of my story, he started smirking and saying he thought he knew what happened, but fortunately it wasn't it.

There is a trend in Japan of hiding things that could be embarassing. For example, a third of the people you see on the Metro are spending their time reading a book, and half of those have the said book in an opaque paper book cover. The book cover does not serve to protect the book - it serves to prevent other people from seeing what you're reading. Of course, it does not really work - if it's really a book, fine, but in many cases it's manga, and if there's nekkid girls inside, people do not need to see the title page to realise what kind of book it is. Still, the book covers are widely used. Also, you can find sex toys that look just like deodorant bottles - you would not look at them twice in the shop. In the same vein, apparently, some companies have started packaging lubricants in bottles with the same imagery as popular soft drinks and teas - including Ramune. The name differs a bit, but the shape and colours are quite similar. I also heard someone tried the matcha lubricant, and that it even tasted of matcha. But it was not matcha.

So in the end, I count myself lucky, I guess.

How to be polite

Japanese signs are fun. Especially the "manners" campaigns. Check these out:

http://www.conbinibento.com/2004/07/16/lets-minding-our-manners/
http://www.tokyometro.jp/anshin/kaiteki/poster/index.html

Don't be scared, the Tokyo Metro site is in Japanese, but posters are easy to understand.