Hacker News Reader

kyazawaon How likely are chance resemblances between languages? (2002)

Lots of interestingly similar words between Japanese and Turkish. For example, yabanjin meaning barbarian in Japanese, and yabancı meaning foreigner in Turkish. The word for "good" is basically the same in both languages (ii/iyi), and the particle -de at the end of a word means "at" in both languages.

kyazawaon Vocaloid 6

Certainly Ungray Days incorporates many rhythms, chord progressions, and other structures that are derivative of other works. I think this is true of all pop music though. These strike me as songwriting elements that have withstood the test of time because they work, so I don't necessarily view them negatively - to the contrary I feel that I need a certain number of these familiar elements for music to emotionally resonate with me. What I love about Tsumiki's music is these common pop structures combined with the fast tempo, weird voice, and busy instrumentation. There is chaos unfolding in the music but at the same time it is held together by classic structures that I recognize from older songs. It produces this chaotic yet focused energy that really gets me going. There's definitely nothing complex or groundbreaking in this song in terms of musical structure, but I haven't really come across other music with a similar "vibe", if you will (System of a Down may come closest for me.)

kyazawaon Vocaloid 6

I went from Vocaloid hater to fan in the span of this year. There are Japanese Vocaloid producers who are pushing the boundaries of pop music in a way that wouldn't be possible with a real singer. I've never come across anything like this music in the West. Definitely an acquired taste.

My Vocaloid song recommendation: Ungray Days by the producer Tsumiki. Tsumiki creates a sharp, aggressive sound that is disagreeable at first but really addictive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvF3Mwj5d4E

kyazawaon Vocaloid 6

I think J-Pop in general tends to create interest through composition (fast and complex chord changes, syncopated melodies with lots of movement) compared to Western pop, which tends to create interest through vocal performance. The characteristics of J-Pop mesh really well with Vocaloid where the voice itself is not that interesting to listen to but you have more composition possibilities for fast tempos or wide pitch ranges that wouldn't be possible with a human singer.

kyazawaon Adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines and measures to prevent them

Thank you. That helps me to view the author's paraphrasing in a more charitable light. "Fraudulent" may have been too strong of a word. I still find it misleading to paraphrase a study in a way that is different from its main conclusion. We don't know what data concerns, etc. the study authors may have had such that they did not explicitly reach this conclusion. And the imprecision in Yamamoto's wording seems intended to mislead as well.

This is an interesting area of study and I'm sure a different author would make a more persuasive case for/against this effect being real.

kyazawaon Adverse effects of Covid-19 vaccines and measures to prevent them

I am so confused about this. The linked Lancet study seems to make the opposite claim, as far as I can tell. Furthermore, the Lancet study seems to be specifically focused on COVID vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19, whereas the quote makes it sound like the study showed a general decrease in immune function among the vaccinated.

Am I missing something here, or is Kenji Yamamoto's paper completely fraudulent?

kyazawaon Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

With EPAS your steering wheel still physically steers the wheel via the rack and pinion gears.

With ABS and ESC, most cars on the road today have a computer involved in the braking system. It seems pretty safe.

kyazawaon Tech-savvy audiences block Google Analytics

This movie sounds great and I would love to watch it. It's a shame there's no legal way to watch many international movies like this if you are in the US.

I make a point of watching a non-US film on every international flight I take - I find it to be a unique opportunity to watch interesting non-US movies with English subs. I have discovered two excellent oddball comedies from in flight movies (Die Goldfische from Germany and Le Grand Partage from France), but when I tried to rewatch these films with others in the US, I discovered it was basically impossible. There must be so many other great movies from around the world we are missing out on.

kyazawaon Google faces $5B lawsuit for tracking people in incognito mode

The "X-Client-Data" Chrome header that I think you are referring to is not sent in Incognito mode according to this article: https://9to5google.com/2020/02/06/google-chrome-x-client-dat...

kyazawaon Coming soon: Fedora on Lenovo laptops

While this is probably generally true, the 2018 6th gen X1 Carbon (I have one and run Fedora on it) has had significant problems with Linux trackpoint support, which still aren't fully resolved. I had to run a firmware update from Lenovo to get things more or less working.

Even though Lenovo provides some firmware via fwupd, this particular trackpoint firmware was only available via a Windows utility, which sucked since I wiped Windows off the machine as soon as I got it. (I had to make a Windows live USB for the sole purpose of installing this update.)

The trackpoint still occasionally dies after waking up from sleep (but much less often since I installed the firmware update.) When this happens I have to run a shell script I set up to bring the trackpoint back.

So, I can't say the Linux experience with my laptop has been great. I'm guessing the device support for these new laptops with Linux preinstalled will be much better.

kyazawaon Where Is Japan's Coronavirus Explosion?

Japan doesn't seem to be testing aggressively like some other countries, so the number of Coronavirus cases could be underreported. But I would assume the number of deaths would be harder to undercount? (Also, a government official is quoted in the article as saying there has been no spike in pneumonia cases. You would expect this to not be the case if there were many Coronavirus-caused deaths not being recorded as such.)

I'm just bewildered that Japan, which bungled the Diamond Princess response so badly, is packed with people in its largest cities, and is not under lockdown like some other countries, seems to be faring better in this crisis than other countries that have had a much stronger response to this virus. Is this a reason to doubt the effectiveness of lockdown measures that have caused severe economic pain in Europe and the US?

kyazawaon China bans consumption and trade of wild animals

https://map.baidu.com/dir/%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E5%B8%82%E7%96%...

I think Baidu Maps places WHCDC in the same complex identified in that Daily Mail article, directly across the street from the Huanan Seafood Market. (I'm a bit uncertain because I don't read Chinese, so please let me know if I've made a mistake here.)

kyazawaon McKinsey, technocratic management, and structural inequality

It's a German expression referring to getting a job through connections (Beziehung = relationship.) https://www.dw.com/en/vitamin-b/a-6616528

kyazawaon Oakland shows how to expand housing supply: tell developers they can build homes

I don't believe this is correct. All the sources I've read say that Tokyo has a growing population.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/07/12/national/japan-...