The Rorschach test is still popular in Japan

 "The test also complements some of Japan’s cultural values, according to those who use it. Ogawa compared it with the Thematic Apperception Test—an assessment that is popular in the United States but seldom used in Japan—which asks subjects to tell a story and therefore requires a greater degree of assertive expression. “The Rorschach interpretation needs a holistic view,” Ogawa said. “I think the Japanese way of thinking agrees with this. The Japanese respect relationships, context, and incorporation.” Indeed, Japan is said to be one of the world’s highest context cultures, meaning that its citizens eschew explicit communication, leaving much unsaid. Rorschach, then, is perhaps the ultimate example of reading between the lines."

Who knew?

The full piece can be read here.

Interesting Links

1.) This was a nice post by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits (also linked in the blog-roll on the right) on unconditional acceptance of one's self:

"Acceptance isn’t stagnation — you will change no matter what. You can’t avoid changing. The question is whether that change comes from a place of acceptance and love, or a place of self-dislike and dissatisfaction. I vote for unconditional love."

The full post can be read here. 

2.) Also, Mr. Money Mustasche published an informative article today on calculating net-worth, spending, and savings rates. It can be read here.

3.) For an interesting view of data on the middle class in America today, this Upshot post is interesting. (I didn't read it, but here is the Times piece from which the data is drawn).

4.) Shirely S. Wang reports on hikikomori in Japan.

[Hikikomori is] a type of social withdrawal that can be so severe, people with it don’t leave their houses for years. It’s also what those who suffer from the condition are called... 

Hikikomori appears to be a condition distinct from other mental illnesses, Japanese experts say. Only about half of those with the condition would be diagnosed with a disorder in the U.S. psychiatric diagnostic manual commonly known as DSM-5, according to one survey of 4,134 Japanese residents published in Psychiatry Research in 2010. But large-scale survey data on hikikomori remains limited.

The full story can be read here.

5.) From The Economist: "The children of the rich and powerful are increasingly well suited to earning wealth and power themselves. That’s a problem."

6.) From MorningStar, a useful discussion on IRAs: "7 Myths That Could Trip Up IRA Contributors"

"Myth 1: If you contribute to an IRA, you won't be able to get your money out unless you have some type of extenuating situation--for example, you're buying a home or going back to school.
Myth 2: A Roth IRA is always the best type.
Myth 3: You can't make a Roth IRA contribution if you earn too much.
Myth 4: You shouldn't fund a backdoor IRA if you have a lot of Traditional IRA assets.
Myth 5: High-income investors can benefit from investing in--and hanging on to--a nondeductible IRA."
Myth 6: You can't contribute to an IRA once you hit age 70 1/2.
Myth 7: You should only hold tax-inefficient investments inside your IRA."

The explanations are nuanced and interesting throughout, particularly since many of the "myths" are in fact only true or false for certain people in certain circumstances. Thanks go to Taylor Larimore on Bogleheads for posting the link. 

7.) Walking classrooms. I like the idea. 

8.) How do kids with autism process play? Interesting study: 

"When participants with ASD were in the MRI scanner and thought they were playing with the child they had just met, their brain activation patterns did not differ from when they thought they were playing with a computer," said Edmiston, who is completing a doctorate in the Vanderbilt Brain Institute Neuroscience Graduate program. "In contrast, typically developing children showed unique activation patterns based on which partner they were playing. This suggests that social agents might not be processed in the brains of people with ASD differently than nonsocial agents."

Interesting post

This was interesting: 10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I learned

An interesting thought on self-esteem

This was an interesting post by David Cain of Raptitude:

"You might think we’d naturally gravitate towards whatever activities do give us this self-affirming sense, but we seem to be driven more by expectations, gratification and momentum. Between watching a bad movie for the third time, and calling up a friend, we’re often inclined to go with the former, not because it promises a better day or a better life, but because we’re usually operating from more immediate incentives: predictability, ease, freedom from risk. The idea of doing something because we like the person it makes us probably doesn’t enter the picture at all.

The question of “Do I like who I am when I’m doing this?” is a different question from “Do I like doing this?” You might find some gratification in arguing online, or overeating, or staying home Saturday nights, but that doesn’t mean that you feel great about who you are when you’re doing them. We’re all very complex, and certain activities reward the avoidant or argumentative drives in us, while other activities reward our compassionate, wise and helpful sides."

The full post can be read here.

*The Richest Man In Babylon*

I recently read this short book, and found it interesting.

You can read it for free here.

Weather and the stock market

This was interesting:

"Weather changes may affect how institutional investors decide on stock plays, according to a new study by a team of finance researchers. Their findings suggest sunny skies put professional investors more in a mood to buy, while cloudy conditions tend to discourage stock purchases."

The full press release can be read here.

Quote of the Day

"Never use money to measure your wealth." -Unknown

Retrieved from here.

Quote of the Day

"Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy." -Haruki Murakami

Retrieved from here.

Quote of the Day

“Our way to practice is one step at a time, one breath at a time.” -Shunryu Suzuki 

Retrieved from here. 

Duolingo is getting more popular

This was neat:

"Sixty million people are now signed up to use Duolingo–the simple, gamified, adaptive language teaching app for smartphones and web browsers. Twenty million of them are currently active users. According to Duolingo, that means there are more people using the platform to learn languages than there are in the entire U.S. public school system."

The piece is by Jordan Shapiro, and is interesting throughout. It can be read here.

Quote of the Day

"I don't know where I am going, but I am on my way." -Voltaire

Retrieved from here.

Spinal cord Implants

This was interesting: 

"Flexible and stretchy, the implant developed at EPFL is placed beneath the dura mater, directly onto the spinal cord. Its elasticity and its potential for deformation are almost identical to the living tissue surrounding it. This reduces friction and inflammation to a minimum. When implanted into rats, the e-Dura prototype caused neither damage nor rejection, even after two months. More rigid traditional implants would have caused significant nerve tissue damage during this period of time."

The entire piece can be read here.

Quote of the Day

“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” -Warren Buffett

Retrieved from here.

Nice post

An interesting post by MMM:

"With the right thoughts, you can trigger yourself into actions that will change your life – or even the entire world. With the wrong thoughts and actions you can just as quickly end up dead. And in between, you can experience complete joy or utter dissatisfaction purely through different perceptions of an identical set of circumstances."

The full post can be read here.

Projects underway

Cycling:

When I changed jobs last year, I also changed how I got to work: in short, I started cycling, covering about 10 miles (16km) a day. That's not a lot by proper cycling standards, but the regularity of the exercise helped me become more familiar with my bicycle, and more comfortable in using it to get places.

It's often said that increasing confidence leads to increasing possibilities. With that in mind, I began considering the possibility of taking some longer cycling trips in the new year. Where to go? My first goal is to ride to my old college and back, and if that goes well attempt a multi-day trip out to Gettysburg and back, which is about 270 miles (434km). Ultimately I want to cycle from one end of the country to the other, visiting friends and interesting places along the way. That will take some time to train for no doubt, and would probably be safer (not to mention more fun) with some company. We'll see how that goes, but I figure that if this year's trips go well then such an undertaking would at least be possible. 

Storytelling:

In 2014 I made two attempts at writing a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. Both efforts came up short, and while I learned a lot in the process, it was still frustrating to not finish what I'd started. After the second attempt I discussed the matter with my friend Bob, who proceeded to say, "This is not good, you have too many unfinished symphonies, my friend. Every artist has a portfolio, and you need to start building yours. If novels aren't working out, why don't you try writing a short story instead?" The idea seemed like a good one, and in four weeks I had completed two and a half such tales which, while not polished, at least contained the basic structure of a story, and some characters that I found interesting. (Incidentally, after reading these drafts my friend Bob concluded that every character sounded like me. Something to work on, it seems). 

As it is, I'm currently working on the draft of another short story, and if all goes well I'll have a few more completed drafts by year's end. Couple that with at least one more 30-day novel attempt, and we are looking at quite a bit of writing practice in 2015.

Language:

This summer my family and I have plans to travel to Germany, so I have started brushing up on my Deutsch for the visit. It's amusing to look back through my old college textbooks, reviewing notes on grammar and vocabulary and culture and the like, and remembering all the fun things we used to do in German class--long chats at Stammtisch (language table), drilling grammar in the basement of Olin Hall, hanging out with Martina the German TA in the international house, not to mention all those hilarious and grammatically-fickle skits we had to write and perform. 

I've always found German a difficult language, but I often had a lot of fun learning it. Perhaps it will prove useful on our trip in the new year.

Art:

Toward the end of last year, I became very interested in learning how to draw people in the style commonly used in manga art. With the help of some online tutorials and a book from the library, I learned enough to make a dozen or so sketches. So far it's been a lot of fun, and the activity is very engrossing. My hope is to continue practicing in the new year, and get to the point where I can draw characters from my imagination rather than simply making sketches from models. Here are a couple that I thought came out well:

Music:

Toward the end of last year I started performing folk-music on bassoon at an open-mic in New Hope on Thursday evenings. I had a really good time playing at those events, since everyone there was very welcoming, and seemed to agree that folk-bassoon was a "sweet" and "gnarly" genre just bursting with possibilities. (That didn't stop the usual flood of  "Nice oboe!"comments, but at this point I just laugh and remind folks that it's a bassoon). After the first few performances I started having reed issues and haven't played as much of late. My hope in the new year is to get those issues corrected, find some interesting music to perform, and make folk bassooning at the community stage a regular thing. The people there are really neat, and performing for them has thus far proven a delight.

__

So those are some of the projects currently underway at the start of 2015. I'm looking forward to seeing where they lead in the new year, and what other challenges will find their way into my life. 

Happy Thursday, friends :) 

Quote of the Day

"A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just." -Pope Francis

Retrieved from here.

Ethics in the Digital Age

Thomas Friedman writes:

"In short, there’s never been a time when we need more people living by the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Because, in today’s world, more people can see into you and do unto you than ever before. Otherwise, we’re going to end up with a “gotcha” society, lurching from outrage to outrage, where in order to survive you’ll either have to disconnect or constantly censor yourself because every careless act or utterance could ruin your life. Who wants to live that way?"

 The op-ed is entitled, "Time for a Pause," and can be read here.

Quote of the Day

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."
-Oscar Wilde

Retrieved from here.

A snowy day

It snowed for most of the day, though accumulations came in at no more than an inch or two (four or five centimeters) of fluffy, lustrous powder. By evening the clouds had begun to yield, and for a bit the sun shone though as it set. At this point I donned a woolly-cap, shoveling the driveway and sidewalk before heading out for a little jaunt around the neighborhood.

The evening was quite cold, but otherwise nice. The snow crunched underfoot as I walked, and where it lay undisturbed, glimmered in the light of the streetlamps with a thousand-thousand sparkles that reminded me of a piece of quartz. With steaming breath, I walked for a few kilometers before returning home for tea.

I enjoyed this first proper snow of the new year.

Happy Tuesday :)

What I've been reading...

I recently finished two interesting books, Gyles Brandreth's Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (2012) and Jeremy Siegel's Stocks for the Long Run 4th. Edition (2007).*

The Vatican Murders is apparently the fifth book in a series featuring Oscar Wilde, and comes highly acclaimed. It sets Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle in a murder mystery that comes with wit, good pacing, and lively characters set in a well-realized setting of late nineteenth-century Rome. I enjoyed the work a good deal, and look forward to checking out some other books in the series from my local library.

Stocks for the Long Run is considered a classic in the investing world, its first edition having come out back in 1994, and comes highly recommended for anyone interested in long-term investing. It's basic argument is that from a historical point of view, stocks have provided the greatest return over the last two hundred years, with a robust return of about 6.8% after inflation per year--several percentage points more than bonds, gold, cash, or any other asset. This difference is called the equity risk premium. Stock returns are more volatile in the short term, but have tended to stabilize over periods longer than twenty years. As such, any long-term investor should have a large percentage of their investment assets in stocks.

The argument is not without its critics, or those who believe the advice inappropriate for many investors. Of the latter, the strongest argument is probably behavioral: stock returns and prices are undoubtedly volatile in the short term, and can and have lost half or more of their value in the course of a few months. Investors who are tempted to sell during such crashes, or who are compelled to sell by circumstances, will not stand to benefit from the higher long-term return of stocks. Better perhaps to have a higher percentage of bonds and/or cash to smooth the ride, even at the expense of return. There are many rules-of-thumb in this regard--"age in bonds" as a percentage of assets, or "age-in-bonds - 10" and so forth.

There is also the standard, "past performance does not guarantee future returns." Stocks have had a historical premium, but there is no guarantee it will continue.

As it is, I found the book a very useful work for thinking about risk and return from investments, and especially enjoyed the historical analysis . If you have an interest in investing, this is a good book to read.

Well, the year is off to a good start in the reading department. We'll see what new works I can find on my next library visit. Happy Tuesday :)

*I've since learned this book recently came out with a fifth edition (2013)

Quote of the Day

"It is easier to cover our feet with sandals than to cover the earth with carpets."

-Indian Proverb

Retrieved from here.

Quote of the Day

"There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult." -Warren Buffett

Retrieved from here

Troubled youths--or not?

This was a pretty interesting look by the Economist of younger folks in the US and Europe these days, focusing in particular on the recent drop in crime, increase in temperance, and a general shift in values among the upcoming generation.

For whatever reason, the piece reminded me of a blog post by Kali Hawlk I read a few weeks ago, entitled, "Millennials, Stop Putting Your Money in the Mattress,"which argued that while young people today are doing well saving money and being frugal, they're doing a lousy job of growing that wealth via investment.

The two pieces seem to point in the same general direction, chiefly that the "Millennial Generation" is not as criminal, lazy, or decadent as some may have been led to believe.

Happy Saturday :)

*Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard? Jon Jandai at TEDxDoiSuthep*

This was a pretty interesting talk.
Happy Friday :)

Hunter-Gatherers had stronger bones

"There is, in fact, no anatomical reason why a person born today could not achieve the bone strength of an orangutan or early human forager, say researchers; but even the most physically active people alive are unlikely to be loading bones with enough frequent and intense stress to allow for the increased bone strength seen in the 'peak point' of traditional hunter-gatherers and non-human primate bones."

The full story can be read here.

Quote of the day

"To the good I will be good. To the bad I will be good, so they learn to be good. To the trustworthy I will give my trust. To the untrustworthy I will give my trust, so they learn to be trustworthy." - Lao Tzu

Retrieved from here, by way of this Reddit thread. 

 

Tiny houses in Tokyo

"The house—in Bunkyo Ward, three subway stops from Tokyo’s main financial district—has 550 square feet of living space. Its main section is only wide enough to fit snugly a queen-size mattress. Yet a high ceiling for the eat-in kitchen on the ground floor and large windows in the living room on the top floor provide a sense of space.

The total cost of the home was just under ¥50 million, or $418,000, with a bit more than half spent on the land."

The full story can be read here.

First walk of the new year

I went for my first stroll of the new year this morning. The sun was out and the skies clear, and a chilly wind blew across my face from the west. The ground felt hard and frozen underfoot, the grass bristling and wispy depending on the spot; its hue ranging from dull green to straw-gold. Overhead, the bare branches of trees clacked and creaked in the morning breeze.

The sunshine felt warming and wholesome, and by walk's end I was feeling chipper and satisfied. Starting the new year with a walk turned out to be a good idea.

The frozen blossom
Delights in a new year's sun;
A slight snatch of Spring.

Happy Thursday :)