Yet Another Nice Article from The Stone from NYT

I thought that this was pretty interesting. Late in my undergraduate philosophy career I found my hard reductionist tendency beginning to soften, and I think that my appreciation of the perspective found in this article is a result of that moderation maturing over the two years since I finished school. I'm digging explanations from all angles, if you will. The article here talks about how clearly understanding both sides of the is-ought distinction is crucial for acting 'for the best' at the practical level.

Please bear with me if I sound particularly unsophisticated right now-- I'm trying to get back into thinking and writing after a rather long hiatus. Cultivating other talents, you know.*

*Halo: Reach

Getting back on that horse

Holy crap, it is hot here. It is like 34C or something. Even the locals are displeased. I'm on door duty here in the shokuinshitsu-- when some asshat leaves the door open I get up and shut it to prevent the conditioned air from being lost.

I just took the LSAT in Tokyo last week. Felt good. I'm going to wait on choosing which schools to apply to until after I get my score back. I don't want to have unrealistic expectations.

With JLPT2 and the LSAT behind me, I've returned to daily Japanese language study. I hope to maintain my enthusiasm (情熱) for another year on this island in the (hot) sun.

Hot Item: Panasonic Lumix FT-2

I recently purchased this camera on a whim while in Kagoshima, but despite my lack of careful deliberation, doing so turned out to be a smart move. The complete radness of this camera is not limited to the orange finish: as one of the latest 'tough' cameras to come to the market, it is shock resistant to 2m drops, waterproof to 10m, and captures 14MP images. Oh, and it shoots some quality HD video.

This is my crew in a sea cave in Miyako. The approach to this cave requires wading through water, so taking my DSLR was out of the question (and I can't afford a waterproof housing).

The images are rather outstanding when shot at close range underwater. Shooting at longer ranges naturally subjects your image to more external circumstances like water turbidity and lighting, so image quality seems to drop off rapidly with distance. My longer range underwater shots from this day are pretty unremarkable, so I'm not posting them here. However, I think that the camera is capable of beautiful underwater photos with the right conditions. That is to say that the camera has not been the limiting factor in my photos so far. I look forward to taking it to the limit next time we have a nice dive.

The excellent HD video capability is the unexpected best feature of this camera. Overlooking the poor quality of YouTube, check out this video:

I didn't wear a weight belt that day, so I kept floating and colliding with the tunnel overhead. Still, pretty cool.

Anyway, having underwater photography (and sweet video) has unlocked a new zone of shareable adventure here in Miyako. Look forward to more stuff.

Brief Thoughts After Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 is a great film. The plot is weird, but it is overcome by the excellent writing and mostly-engaging characters. Insofar as it is a game, however, there's so much more that could have been done to make it more than a fairly fun, generic 'press A to take cover' shooter. I'm not here to argue that larger topic, though. Instead I'd like to focus on one particular aspect that I can't stop thinking about: I wish there were some sort of PvP multiplayer that took advantage of the richness of the combat powers.

There is a lot of unexplored potential in the class-power scheme of the game. While there is nothing aggressively wrong with the AI in ME2, it remains the case that in terms of unpredictability and challenge, nothing can replace a human opponent. The new classes in ME2 are a load of fun, so the absence of a way to pit your carefully configured team against that of another person is pretty painful.

This issue comes to my mind whenever I spam the shit out of my enemies with my engineer's combat drone. Gunfights-- while exciting-- are a joke. There are never any 'whoa, almost didn't make it out of that one' moments because nearly every fight is a one-sided blowout where my team plows through the opposition. When it isn't that, it is just the enemy rushing my team and sacking Shepherd as if there is no way for me to affect the match. Circumstances rarely require the use of medi-gels.

The AI ALWAYS turns to fight the combat drone, taking the heat off me and giving me the opportunity to shoot at their backs with impunity. In contrast, a human player might not do that, instead choosing to press into my fire and land a killing shot.

I did have one fight in-game that could plausibly be called tactical. Fighting the Collectors on the moving platforms inside the dormant ship was tough the first four tries. I forget what they are called, but they've got these bubbled wretch-type things that hang back and hit you with one shockwave after another, destroying your shields and health in two successive glancing hits. The solution for victory turned out to be a simple flanking maneuver where I ran to an unoccupied platform and sniped the shit out of the bubble dude from his left. It was briefly rewarding, and I wonder whether Bioware could have created more situations like that.

Then again, maybe they made it this way on purpose; having to sit through the restart/loading screens is aggravating when you're fired up about killing.

As it is now, not all of the powers/abilities are suited for multiplayer. Available to the Vanguard class is the shockwave power, the noob tube of any hypothetical ME2 PvP encounter. It is staggeringly powerful. It goes through cover at long range and has an unexpectedly wide area of effect. When hit, it drops one's shields immediately-- a second hit means death. For Mass Effect to go multiplayer, something would have to be done to weaken shockwave.

I must reiterate that Mass Effect 2 is in no way a bad game-- Bioware accomplished exactly what they set out to do with the middle part of the trilogy. Mass Effect has always been about providing an excellent and pure single-player experience. In addition to dividing the effort of the developers, having a multiplayer component in ME2 would have detracted from the canonical unity of the narrative. Nevertheless, I just can't stop thinking of how excellent it would be to go up against other humans' squads pokemon-style. Matching team composition strategy and rapid tactical decision making would be a lot of fun and is the only way for the excitement of the combat system to reach its potential.

Besides, what's the point of having your own customized Commander Sheperd if you're the only person who is going to look at it?

*Disclaimer: playing on Veteran difficulty

Waido Marathon

Two Sundays ago I completed my first footrace, the 21km component of Miyako's annual Waido Marathon. 'Waido' is a Miyako-dialect word that basically means 'ganbare,' or 'try hard/go for it', and that's what participants do for the most part.

Some work harder than others, though. The main event is a 100km loop around the coasts of Miyako and Ikema that takes the fastest runners about 7.5 hours. The next step down is a 50km marathon-plus that, interestingly enough, attracts few participants. The shortest available distance (and my trial run) was the 21km dash from Higashi Hennazaki (Eastern Cape) to the German culture village in Ueno. It is reasonably popular with us locals. There's something for everyone.

My training for the race was half-assed, and I credit this to a depressingly inert combination of ignorance and indolence. That is, the lead up to the race went just as I expected and not as I planned, if you catch my drift. The longest single run I achieved during training was a 10k, and that happened only once. I had a rough cough during the week of the race, but I decided to go for it-- not because I trained, but because I paid money and had received a shirt which would become embarrassingly inapplicable to me if I didn't complete the run.

And so I ran.

I learned a lot during the first 10km: how to run down hills without crying, that I should have started farther in the front of the starting pack, and that my Underarmour shirt was too fucking hot to be wearing that day. I took it off and tied it around my waist, leaving the outer shirt jauntily bunched up around my neck like a wreath. Got to have that airflow.

Kilometers 10 to 17 were pleasant, as far as these things go. I was zen-like as I breezed past the sugar cane on one side and the coast on the other.

The running reverie came to a crashing halt at kilometer 18 when my legs stiffened like curing cement. As a small guy, normal physical activity has never caused my knees to hurt, but this run caused some serious tension at the area immediately below them. I stretched a bit at the drink stations, downing sports drink and water and avoiding the bananas and brown sugar on offer.

Anyway, I eventually made to the end (no sprinting finish) and inhaled a pile of bananas, anpan, and water from the recovery area. My students from Ueno milled around in sporty blue jackets, handing out medals and refreshments to the runners as they finished.

Next up is the Irabu half marathon in February. I'm thinking about getting some Nike Free 5s (I have 7s right now) and developing a different stride. As it is, I run in a fairly conventional manner (landing on the heel after the stride), but lately I've been trying to avoid the heels and stay more bouncy like a barefoot runner. I'll give that style a go and put it to the test at the end of next month, sans Underarmour. Out.