CFL Condition - A snippet of Science

It is been a long time with no post. So I will post an almost meaningless post! I have been working on a poster for AGU, and I am trying to break down a lot of science related content that is prerequisite for the topic of my poster.

So I have posted a figure that I will slap on my poster. The figure to the right shows something called the CFL condition. Courant, Friedrichs and Lewy showed that a spatial grid will not be accurate if the distance something travels is greater than the size of a grid node. So the moving thing is not allowed to move into the next grid cell.

The data I am working with is special because if you have some data that results in traveling too far, like the red and purple arrows, then you need to recompute those regions of the grid using a smaller grid space AND a smaller time step. The traditional model is to recreate the entire grid using a smaller grid and time step. But this approach allows us to focus computation on areas that require more detailed analysis. This changing the grid only where necessary is called Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR). Mesh is just a fancier word for grid, for those who haven't heard it before.

I wish I could post about more of the adventures and things I am doing in Korea. But to be fair, I have been spending a lot of time in Korea recently doing all sorts of computer, math, and science related activities. I'm actually looking forward to finishing this poster so I can get back to playing with my little computer programs and playing with scientific results.

Burger King in Korea

Cross section view into a Whopper

The Whopper Set

Yesterday I went to a Burger King in Gangnam. Gangnam is just one station from me, and I thought it would be nice to get a burger. For some reason I enjoy grabbing US fast food when I visit other countries. Sometimes it tastes completely different, and other times it fills the craving I have for some good ol' American junk food.

I was happy to find that the BK Whopper in Korea tastes just like the Whopper back home. I did notice one difference from Burger Kings back in the US, the fries are different. I actually like the Korean fries better. In America they use a larger cut of fries and they are less crispy. The fries I had were thinner than American Burger King fries, and were similar to McDonald fries.

As I sat eating my Burger King Whopper I also thought about how in America we like to blame fast food and all sorts of things for people being overweight. As I reflected I thought about how many fast food places are in Korea and Japan and I really don't think that fast food is the problem. I think that there is a deer issue that is the root of so many people are overweight in the US. Not sure what it is, but I do know that if I eat better and exercise more I lose weight. So maybe people int he US just don't exercise or move around much, as well as eating too much junk food.

If fast food was what made people overweight, then Japan would probably be the heaviest nation out there! Below are two of my favorite Burger King add campaigns I have heard of to date. I look forward to taking part in one of these events sometime!

• All you can eat Whopper
• Windows 7 Whopper

Steve Jobs -- A Ding in the Universe

Steve Jobs passed away today. 


I know less than I would like to know about him and his life. I do know that I use products that he pioneered on a daily bases. I have great respect for innovation and creativity, and Steve Jobs was the greatest innovator I know of durring my lifetime. He has probably had one of the greatest impacts on the lives of people around the world.


This morning I woke up and started playing games on my iPad, and when I went to surf the web I saw an image on the Apple home page.


"The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented." -- President Obama


As I have been reading articles on Steve Jobs this morning, I am inspired to work harder. I'm not an "80 hours a week and loving it" kind of guy, but his innovation inspires me to go out and do something.


So today I have compiled a list of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs, and one or two about him. I will share them here, I typed most of them in by hand so please be understanding of typos.


Quotes about Steve Jobs:
"[Steve Jobs] was able to take something that was very boring, very cold, very mysterious, that nobody understood, and nobody really cared about and turn it into the single sexiest object in the market place today." -- Professor Aram Sinnreich


Short Quotes: (Some of these are taken from long quotes)
"Creativity is just connecting things." -- Steve Jobs
"I want to put a ding in the universe." -- Steve Jobs

"Things don't have to change the world to be important." -- Steve Jobs

"We make the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them." -- Steve Jobs

"It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy." -- Steve Jobs

Long Quotes:


"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle." -- Steve Jobs


"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice." -- Steve Jobs


"Innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem. It's ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who things he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea." -- Steve Jobs


"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason to not follow your heart." -- Steve Jobs


"These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light -- that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important." -- Steve Jobs


"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations." -- Steve Jobs
"The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay." -- Steve Jobs


"When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through." -- Steve Jobs


"Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works. The design of a Mac wasn't what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it's all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, and not just quickly swallow it. Most people don't take the time to do that." -- Steve Jobs

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they often feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people." -- Steve Jobs


"This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now." -- Steve Jobs

"I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids" -- Steve Jobs


"You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life" -- Steve Jobs


Sources:
Stanford University: Commencement Address 2005
The Wall Street Journal: Steve Jobs's Best Quotes
Wired: Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing
Los Angeles Times: Steve Jobs, dead at 56, had a rare form of pancreatic cancer

Go out and do something creative!

Visit to Sendai and Morioka

I had to spend a couple days in Sendai for my work Visa, and I took the opportunity to visit my friends living in Morioka over the weekend.

Wednesday I flew to Sendai, it took a while because of connecting flights through Fukuoka, but I arrived and found my hostel with very little problems. In Sendai I stayed at Miyagi Guest House and it was fantastic. I had a great time and found it to be very friendly. I spent Thursday exploring Sendai and doing a little shopping. Then on Friday I decided to stay in the hostel main room and do some work from my laptop; the owner was really nice and made me lunch and a few people hung out all day.

During my first couple days in Japan I was very thankful that I knew Japanese. While the Japanese don't speak as much English as the Koreans do, I was still able to communicate with people without many problems. I spent a lot of time in the area of Sendai station. I was originally hoping to spend time with my friend J.B. Kido, he is a geophysics researcher at Touhoku University, unfortunately he was out to sea doing research related activities when I visited. I hope his research went well, I had to drink on my own while he was out. But I had a good time. I went to a neat little bar, Teddy's Bar just off of the main strip. It was a nice place, the owner spoke some English, but we talked mostly in Japanese. I was interested how Sendai was doing since the Tsunami, I was glad to hear that the tsunami didn't do physical damage to the city, but there has been substantial financial damage. Currently commerce is down and many businesses are struggling in Sendai at the moment. I found that this shock to the economy stretches as far as Morioka, where many people have families displaced by the tsunami.

Teddy's bar was a fantastic visit. I was happy to be drinking some great Japanese beer, but I also ordered a hamburger and was very surprised at how fantastic the burger was. While Japanese food is fantastic, it is a rare find when you find a Japanese restaurant serving good burgers. The burger at Teddy's is one of my favorite burgers I have had to date. I had a good time and will definitely return to have a beer and burger the next time I am in Sendai!

After a day of working on Friday I picked up my visa and headed to Morioka by bus. It was a nice ride, I got to sit back and enjoy the scenery, I also took a nap in anticipation of all the fun to come in the evening. I'm glad I did because I was up until around 5am. The main problem with my weekend in Morioka was that I forgot my camera on the bus, so I took very few pictures. But that is fine because I had a lot of fun and caught up with a lot of friends.

Friday night I met with Morita, Yuko, Regain, Kintaro, and a new friend Haruka. Then a little later into the evening a party came into the Bike Cafe for a few last drinks and I met some really nice guys! Unfortunately I don't remember all their names; I know I was calling one of them "Dan" and another guy "Peter". There as also a cool guy named "Yukku". It was Yakku's birthday, and they were having a great night. They were pretty cool guys and we went out again on Sunday for Korean food at the restaurant where Haruka works. Too bad I didn't have my camera because I would have loved to have more pictures from the korean restaurant, and the Japanese boys Dan, Peter, and Yuk.

One of my favorite things in Morioka was the visits to the public baths. Sure it wasn't an onsen, but it was a bath that has some minerals in the water. We went to the bath on Saturday - Monday, we would go into the hot bath, the jet bath, the sauna, and the cold-water bath. I really enjoyed the cold water bath after a long stint in the sauna or hot baths. I must say I felt very rejuvenated after the baths.

Monday was my final day in Morioka. Kenji came to pick me up at the Bike Cafe, and we hung out for a little bit before I headed out. King had come by to bring us something to drink. It was a Korean drink, but I forgot the name of the drink. It was soju, but it was white and creamy. Kenji lives about a 1 hour drive from the Bike Cafe so we drove from Morioka to his home. We had a nice long car ride and a chance to talk for a while. Kenji is trying to study English so we practiced English a bit, and we spoke in Japanese when things were too complex. 

It was fun going to his place because I got to do a mini homestay with Kenji, we had a few drinks before going to bed, then in the morning we had breakfast and watched TV. It was good to just relax and chat with a friend. In the morning he drove me to the Sendai Airport were we talked for a couple hours then as we neared the airport I got to  see all the damage done to Sendai. Because I arrived in the evening I didn't notice all the damage to the area, but in full daylight I saw that there was a lot of damage near the airport. I was thrown for a bit of a shock when I saw a boat in the middle of a farm. Near the airport there were many places that just had piles of debris, and farms were full of bags that must have been full of garbage moved around by the water.

I must say that I am still in awe as to all the damage done by the tsunami. I only saw a small glimpse of the damage caused, and I know that it has just ruined so much. So much property, but more importantly so many lives have been impacted by the event. The Japanese people are working through the tsunami, and I know my friends will be fine; but I still wonder if there is some way I can help. I think that something as simple as visiting Japan can help. After hearing about how local stores are hurting I think that visiting and paying business to local shops does a world of help. While in Japan I got a lot out of talking to people and just listening to their stories.

Despite the depressing overtone of the tsunami I had a lot of fun in Japan. It was a great visit. Some of my friends had a personal connection to the tsunami, but people are doing well. I'm already starting to think about when I will  have my next opportunity to go visit!

Finally Furnished Apartment

While our furnishings are not finalized we have finally reached a critical point where our apartment looks and feels like an apartment, and not a big open room. I used a very interesting app called Photosynth from Microsoft to take a panorama. The only downfall was that I was unable to capture the refrigerator in my panorama image!

Some of the highlights are the kitchen table, which is a nice wooden table. Behind it you can see the kitchen area with a sink and some cupboards and storage. Then there is a glimpse of the bathroom and some shelves we have assembled to store things.

Next you can peek into the bedroom, and next to the bedroom door is our couch. The couch is very nice, and we have a shelf next to it as an end-table as well as a nice coffee table we can use to rest our feet. I also like to sit on the floor and use the coffee table as a desk. Behind the coffee table you can see the veranda. Out on the veranda we dry laundry and there is a small room to the right that houses the washing machine.

Finally we come to the desk, where we are able to sit and work. It can get a little cold because the air conditioner is right above the desk. The desk is working really well so I will probably stop using the coffee table as a mini-desk now.

The one unseen element is the refrigerator. that would be located between the desk and the cupboards of the kitchen. It is just next to the coffee table, but the application for creating panoramas got a little confused and thought we had created a 360 degree picture when we only had about 270 degrees. For those curious about the refrigerator here is a link to some pictures on my Flickr page.

Now we have a complete apartment so hopefully things will begin to calm down a bit and we can start looking for some things to do on the weekend that don't involve furnishing our apartment!

Konjiam Resort

This week I went to Konjiam Resort for a conference on QoLT.

It was a beautiful resort east of Seoul were I was able to meet a lot of cool people and take a lot of pics. I posted my pics online, and hope you will enjoy them!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moriokakaiju/sets/72157627413472975/

I'm sorry I haven't posted pics in the blog, but I am posting a link to many pictures that I have on my flickr account.

I would break the weekend into several parts.

First I had a chance to meet people at the conference, which was really nice. I was sharing a room with two Korean men, and what turned out to be interesting was they had both lived in the America; one lived in Canada, but that still counts, eh? But to make matters even more interesting they both spoke Japanese as well! It was a very interesting dinner we had.

That night I met with a couple math professors from Korea University and we all had a few drinks, sang some Karaoke and had a good time. We were out really late and I didn't realize my roommates were awake. I felt bad because I found out I had kept one guy up.

The next day the conference wrapped up, and I spent some time in the area with Gabriele and his family. We visited a small forest area with lots of sites to see. They created an interesting environment in the side of the mountain that was a lot of fun to look around. It was very fun, but difficult to push Marlen in her stroller. Please look at the photos and enjoy. I got some fantastic macro shots of dragon-flys as well as some fantastic pictures of flowers and other scenery.

Food in Seoul

I have been enjoying the food in Seoul a lot. I love Japanese food, something I learned living in Japan. Now that I am in Seoul I am realizing that I love Korean food! It is really good and filling. I can eat as much as I want and know I will be satisfied.

There area few customs I like in Korea. For one you can get as many of the side dishes that you want. Usually there is a spicy kimchee or two, and another pickled vegetable that is less spicy. If you are hungry you won't need to leave most restaurants hungry.

It is also easy to find non-korean food. I have been thinking I should create a list of non-korean food that is really good in Korea. I'm surprised at how good the fried chicken is here!

Aly and I have gone to some really nice restaurants. Here a picture from a fantastic traditional Koran place that was like walking into another world. The entire restaurant was just filled with fantastic scenery. There was a waterfall outside and live music. Everything was just great!

This restaurant was expensive, but well worth it for a great experience. We went there with Gabriele and his family. As is usually the case his daughter was the star of the evening.