Sunday, May 24, 2026

Epistemic Orientation

Chatgpt -- many fictional characters embody exactly this impulse: compulsive decoding, orienting themselves through clues, languages, symbols, maps, and hidden systems. Some are detectives, but others are wanderers, archivists, scholars, or anxious observers trying to make the world legible.

A few especially close to what you described:

Sherlock Holmes
Notices tiny environmental clues constantly: mud, handwriting, accents, cigarette ash, train schedules, regional details. The world is readable if one pays attention.
Robert Langdon
Almost entirely driven by semiotics — symbols, architecture, scripts, hidden meanings, historical layering. A very “everything is a clue” mindset.
Lisbeth Salander
Hypervigilant pattern assembler. Information gathering is both power and emotional regulation.
Adrian Monk
A more anxiety-centered version of this. Disorder and uncertainty create distress; observation and categorization restore calm.
Hermione Granger
Uses knowledge acquisition as stabilization. When confronted with uncertainty, she researches compulsively.
The Doctor
Reads cultures, scripts, technologies, histories instantly; curiosity and orientation are inseparable.
Spock
Processes unfamiliar environments by systematic classification and linguistic decoding.
Hari Seldon
Treats civilization itself as something legible through patterns.
Aomame and many protagonists from Haruki Murakami novels
Exist in states of estrangement where tiny signs and details become psychologically charged clues.

There are also characters whose relationship to language itself resembles what you said:

Arrival's Louise Banks
Language learning becomes a way of restructuring reality and reducing alienness.
Professor Henry Higgins
Identifies people through accent and linguistic detail instantly.
Milo Thatch
Driven by scripts, lost languages, translation, and the desire to decode forgotten worlds.
Indiana Jones
Archaeological clue-chasing mixed with linguistic and symbolic interpretation.

A particularly close match to your description may actually be characters from works about archives, maps, and interpretation rather than classic detectives:

The Name of the Rose
A whole world where manuscripts, symbols, languages, and tiny clues create psychological orientation.
Foucault's Pendulum
About the intoxicating tendency to connect everything into hidden systems.
The Rings of Saturn
A wandering associative consciousness where every object triggers historical and linguistic excavation.
Invisible Cities
Cities become semiotic puzzles and emotional maps.

What you describe also resembles a certain kind of “scholar-adventurer” archetype:

someone uncomfortable with opacity,
compelled to annotate the world,
using language and clues to domesticate strangeness.

In fiction, this trait often overlaps with:

detectives,
archivists,
codebreakers,
anthropologists,
librarians,
cartographers,
conspiracy theorists,
translators.

Because all of them transform uncertainty into interpretable structure.

Thursday, May 21, 2026

Index making

20 types of index in Chinese and Kanji

Have never thought of the index making process, of writing in small index cards.

Intrepid Indexing

Saturday, May 16, 2026

How writing has changed post internet

Earlier, since books were accessible and popular sources of disseminationg knowledge, you ahd to include lot of details. Now with searcha vailable, you dont have to ground the details as much.

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Writing opinion

Chatgpt -- there are excellent college-level materials and journalism programs specifically for opinion writing, editorials, reviews, and NYT-style guest essays.

The key thing to understand is that writing for the Opinion section of The New York Times is not the same as academic essay writing. Editors want:

a clear argument
a strong, distinctive voice
evidence and reporting
timeliness
originality
concise structure
authority or lived experience

The Times’ own submission guidelines emphasize that strong guest essays make a focused argument grounded in expertise or personal experience.

Here’s a practical path to learn the craft.

1. Study the Structure of Great Opinion Writing

Read these sections regularly:

The New York Times Opinion / Guest Essays
The Washington Post Opinions
The Atlantic essays
The New Yorker criticism/reviews

A good op-ed usually has:

A sharp opening
- surprising fact
- contradiction
- vivid scene
- personal stake
A clear thesis
- one sentence stating the argument
Evidence
- reporting
- studies
- examples
- firsthand experience
Counterargument
- acknowledge objections briefly
A memorable ending
- insight
- consequence
- challenge
- emotional turn

The Washington Post’s guide says successful op-eds are usually about 750–800 words with a clear thesis and strong structure.

2. Best College Courses & Journalism Programs

University Journalism Courses

University of Arizona — Opinion Writing

The course “JOUR 558: Opinion Writing” focuses specifically on editorial and opinion writing processes.

University of California, Berkeley — Opinion Writing

Berkeley’s journalism school has a dedicated “Opinion Writing” course centered on persuasive essay writing and publication-ready arguments.

The New School — Editorial & Advocacy Writing

Strong for political/cultural criticism and persuasive journalism.

Columbia University — The Art of Opinion Writing

A practical online course from Columbia Journalism School on writing publishable opinion essays.

3. Best Free Learning Materials

NYT Submission & Editorial Standards

These are extremely valuable because they show exactly what editors look for.

You learn:

acceptable length
editorial standards
fact-checking expectations
originality rules
how pitches work

4. Learn These Four Writing Modes Separately

A lot of beginners mix them together.

Type	Purpose	Tone
News writing	Inform	Neutral
Editorial	Institutional opinion	Formal/persuasive
Op-ed / Guest Essay	Personal argument	Voice-driven
Review/Criticism	Evaluate art/media	Analytical + stylish

Reddit journalism discussions summarize editorials well: identify a problem and argue for a solution.

5. Books That Teach NYT-Level Style

These are genuinely useful:

Opinion / Essay Writing

On Writing Well
The Elements of Style
Draft No. 4
Everybody Writes

Criticism & Reviews

How to Write About Music
Reading Like a Writer

Journalism & Voice

The New New Journalism

6. Best Practice Method (Most Important)

This works better than passive learning.

Daily Exercise

Choose one NYT Opinion piece and do this:

Step 1 — Outline it

Write:

thesis
evidence
transitions
ending strategy

Step 2 — Rewrite the headline

NYT headlines are extremely engineered.

Step 3 — Write a counter-opinion

This teaches structure fast.

Step 4 — Cut 30%

Opinion editors love compression.

7. How to Practice Review Writing

For reviews:

movies
books
restaurants
games
politics
cultural criticism

Study:

argument
scene description
judgment criteria
style/voice

Strong reviewers:

describe
interpret
evaluate
contextualize

not just “I liked it.”

8. The Fastest Path to Publication

Start smaller before aiming for NYT.

Good progression:

Medium/Substack
College paper
Local newspaper
Regional magazines
National outlets
NYT Guest Essay

People in journalism communities often note that major outlets prefer writers with either:

subject expertise
unique firsthand experience
demonstrated publication history

9. What NYT Opinion Editors Usually Want

Based on their guidelines and editor commentary:

They look for:

surprising insight
timely relevance
authority
strong perspective
elegant prose
concise argumentation
intellectual honesty

They reject:

generic hot takes
ranting
obvious arguments
unsupported claims
academic jargon
overly long introductions

10. A Self-Study Curriculum (8 Weeks)

Weeks 1–2

Read 3 opinion pieces/day
Outline arguments

Weeks 3–4

Write 300-word op-eds
Practice headlines

Weeks 5–6

Write reviews and criticism
Study transitions and pacing

Weeks 7–8

Pitch editors
Revise heavily
Submit to smaller publications

If you want, I can also help with:

a full NYT-style opinion writing syllabus
a reading list of the best modern op-ed writers
how to write reviews like NYT critics
editorial writing templates
how to pitch publications
free Ivy League journalism course PDFs
or a daily training routine to become publication-ready in 6 months.

Monday, May 11, 2026

Engineering in Biology

Engineering Physical systems for Biology

cant engineer luck

https://x.com/K_Ishi_AI/status/2053709348808134974 - self evolution in Go, Matehmatics and LLM

"LRMs show human-like rule discovery, and their hidden states predict human brain activity during gameplay."

Is the self evolution of Math? Hope of Bourbaki

Sunday, May 10, 2026

Is the rebus relation maintained in Japanese exactly as in Chinese?

Gemini ---

While Japanese uses these characters, it typically separates the meanings into different characters to avoid the confusion that the original loan system created. [1, 2]

In modern usage for both languages, the character 其 has almost entirely lost its literal meaning of "basket" and is now used only for its borrowed meanings. [1]

How the "Winnowing Basket" (其) works now:

The Shared Loan Meaning: Both Chinese and Japanese still use 其 as a pronoun/demonstrative meaning "that," "its," or "those" (e.g., Japanese: sono 其の; Chinese: qí 其).
The Literal "Basket" Meaning: To clarify the literal meaning, a bamboo radical (⺮) was added centuries ago to create 箕.
- In Japanese: If you want to say "winnowing basket," you must use 箕 (mi). If you use 其, a Japanese person will only read it as "that".
- In Chinese: Similarly, 箕 (jī) is the standard for the literal basket. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

How "Probably/Will" (将) works now:

The character 将 (or 將) is a rare case where both languages do maintain multiple abstract meanings in the same character.

As "Future/Will": Both use it for things that "will happen" (e.g., Japanese shōrai 将来 / Chinese jiānglái 将来).
As "Leader/General": Both use it for a military rank (e.g., Japanese shōgun 将軍 / Chinese jiāngjūn 将军).
Literal Meaning: Unlike the basket, the "literal" origin of 将 (meat on a table) is so ancient it has effectively disappeared from everyday use in both languages. [1, 2, 3]

Summary Table

Original Concept [1, 2]	Shared Graphic Loan	Character for "Literal" meaning
Winnowing Basket	其 (Now only means "that")	箕 (Used for "basket")
Leader / General	将 (Used for "will" AND "leader")	None (literal form is archaic)

In short, while the system of borrowing was imported to Japan, the Japanese language (like modern Chinese) eventually "cleaned it up" by using different characters for literal objects versus abstract concepts.

Thursday, May 7, 2026

Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese

Matteo Ricci

Kanbun

Hyangchal

kungana

https://x.com/NanaoSakurada/status/2052265301530841246 word families

Only when "sound → meaning" connects directly will you finally be able to catch what’s being said. - @Maochan_Chinese 「音→意味」が直結して、初めて聞き取れるようになります。

`Oto ￫ imi' ga chokketsu shite, hajimete kikitoreru yō ni narimasu.

pg 14 loan graph borrowing.

Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Omori cup speech contest

私と日本

Watashi to Nihon
Me and Japan

『おしん』は、私が初めて見た日本のドラマです。
“Oshin” wa, watashi ga hajimete mita Nihon no dorama desu.
Oshin was the first Japanese drama I watched.

おしんは、私にとってとても共感できる存在でした。
Oshin wa, watashi ni totte totemo kyōkan dekiru sonzai deshita.
Oshin was someone I could really relate to.

リビングルームで、『ジーニー』や『ドゥギー・ハウザー』、『アリフ・ライラ』などをよく見ていました。
Ribingu rūmu de, “Jīnii” ya “Dugī Hauzā”, “Arifu Raira” nado o yoku mite imashita.
In the living room, I often watched Genie, Doogie Howser, and Alif Laila.

このように、いろいろなものに共感しては、「これは私かな？」と考えていました。
Kono yō ni, iroiro na mono ni kyōkan shite wa, “kore wa watashi kana?” to kangaete imashita.
I kept wondering, “Is this me?”

仕事を始めた頃、私は新しい環境に慣れず、少し孤独を感じていました。
Shigoto o hajimeta koro, watashi wa atarashii kankyō ni narezu, sukoshi kodoku o kanjite imashita.
When I started my first job, I felt a bit lonely in a new environment.

その時、本を読むことで気持ちを落ち着かせていました。
Sono toki, hon o yomu koto de kimochi o ochitsukasete imashita.
At that time, I calmed myself by reading books.

カズオ・イシグロの『浮世の画家』と『日の名残り』は特に印象に残っています。
Kazuo Ishiguro no “Ukiyo no Gaka” to “Hino Nagori” wa tokuni inshō ni nokotte imasu.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day left a strong impression.

また三島由紀夫の『金閣寺』も読みました。
Mata Mishima Yukio no “Kinkakuji” mo yomimashita.
I also read Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

飛行機の中で映画『舟を編む』を見てから、漢字が好きになりました。
Hikōki no naka de eiga “Fune o Amu” o mite kara, kanji ga suki ni narimashita.
After watching The Great Passage on a plane, I came to like kanji.

映画の中で漢字が海に浮かぶように見え、そのイメージが強く残りました。
Eiga no naka de kanji ga umi ni ukabu yō ni mi e, sono imēji ga tsuyoku nokorimashita.
In the movie, kanji appeared as if floating in the sea, and that image stayed with me.

漢字を学ぶことがとても嬉しいです。
Kanji o manabu koto ga totemo ureshii desu.
I am very happy learning kanji.

すでに知っている言葉の漢字に出会うと、とても嬉しく感じます。
Sude ni shitte iru kotoba no kanji ni deau to, totemo ureshiku kanjimasu.
When I meet kanji of words I already know, I feel very happy.

言葉の中で、昔からの友達に再会したような温かい気持ちになります。
Kotoba no naka de, mukashi kara no tomodachi ni saikai shita yō na atatakai kimochi ni narimasu.
It feels like warmly meeting an old friend within language.

✍️ VERSION 2 — Full essay blocks

🇯🇵 Japanese

Speech Contest

『おしん』は、私が初めて見た日本のドラマです。おしんは、私にとってとても共感できる存在でした。リビングルームで、『ジーニー』や『ドゥギー・ハウザー』、『アリフ・ライラ』などをよく見ていました。このように、いろいろなものに共感しては、「これは私かな？」と考えていました。

仕事を始めた頃、私は新しい環境に慣れず、少し孤独を感じていました。その時、本を読むことで気持ちを落ち着かせていました。カズオ・イシグロの『浮世の画家』と『日の名残り』は特に印象に残っています。また三島由紀夫の『金閣寺』も読みました。

飛行機の中で映画『舟を編む』を見てから、漢字が好きになりました。映画の中で漢字が海に浮かぶように見え、そのイメージが強く残りました。漢字を学ぶことがとても嬉しいです。すでに知っている言葉の漢字に出会うと、とても嬉しく感じます。言葉の中で、昔からの友達に再会したような温かい気持ちになります。

🗣️ Romaji

“Oshin” wa, watashi ga hajimete mita Nihon no dorama desu. Oshin wa, watashi ni totte totemo kyōkan dekiru sonzai deshita. Ribingu rūmu de, “Jīnii”, “Dugī Hauzā”, “Arifu Raira” nado o yoku mite imashita. Kono yō ni, iroiro na mono ni kyōkan shite wa, “kore wa watashi kana?” to kangaete imashita.

Shigoto o hajimeta koro, watashi wa atarashii kankyō ni narezu, sukoshi kodoku o kanjite imashita. Sono toki, hon o yomu koto de kimochi o ochitsukasete imashita. Kazuo Ishiguro no “Ukiyo no Gaka” to “Hino Nagori” wa tokuni inshō ni nokotte imasu. Mata Mishima Yukio no “Kinkakuji” mo yomimashita.

Hikōki no naka de eiga “Fune o Amu” o mite kara, kanji ga suki ni narimashita. Eiga no naka de kanji ga umi ni ukabu yō ni mi e, sono imēji ga tsuyoku nokorimashita. Kanji o manabu koto ga totemo ureshii desu. Sude ni shitte iru kotoba no kanji ni deau to, totemo ureshiku kanjimasu. Kotoba no naka de, mukashi kara no tomodachi ni saikai shita yō na atatakai kimochi ni narimasu.

“Oshin” was the first Japanese drama I watched. Oshin was someone I could really relate to. In the living room, I often watched shows like Genie, Doogie Howser, and Alif Laila. In this way, I kept wondering, “Is this me?”

When I started my first job, I was not used to the new environment and felt a bit lonely. At that time, I calmed myself by reading books. Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day left a strong impression on me. I also read Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

After watching The Great Passage on a plane, I came to like kanji. In the movie, kanji appeared as if floating in the sea, and that image stayed strongly in my mind. I am very happy learning kanji. When I encounter kanji from words I already know, I feel very happy. It feels like warmly meeting an old friend within language.

Monday, May 4, 2026

It's Hard to Be an Animal: A Novel

Long way here. "Isabel’s first true love, though, was Simon, a fluffy puppy who’d been saved from the meat trade. As the highs and lows of her twenties hit Isabel in wave after wave, it was Simon who kept her grounded. Together, Isabel and Simon created a community of dog-lovers and a tight-knit group of friends pursuing their dreams." from the description of Isabel klees new memoir exploring the realities of dog rescue. There is a conneciton here to the The Sheep Detectives movie too which made me revisit this novel.

The SHeep Detectives

The sheep have a way of forgettign things like the red or blue oill, safe choice - what Luke Burgis calls "an illusion sustained by a comforting simulation" in his book The one and the 99.

Getting the sheep system to act, the outcast and then the first one who needs to believe to act.