Cosine Thoughts

A recent development in the past year or so at our dojo has been an "internal shinsa" to test for whether or not the dojo leadership would allow us to challenge for the next shinsa. I love the idea. My own feedback? I wish I had done worse. I have a problem. I don't like positive feedback. It doesn't tell me much. By no means was the performance perfect, and there were critiques. They were simply stifled by the positives. It deflates the sense of urgency and need for me. I suppose that there is an up side. It forces me to be the negative one. We didn't get to see the recordings, so I can only focus on what I was told and what I normally don't do well. And that too is a blessing in disguise. That performance was singular. Both in the literal sense and in the sense that I was feeling REALLY GOOD that day. I've never been able to perform so "freely". So, in some sense, focusing too much on that performance might not be as helpful. The critiques I di...

No. At least, not yet. Then again, we also should not have scrapped the carbon tax. There are a few key pillars to my reasoning: The government is operating a deficit. And a big one. This helps. The world is currently in an energy crisis, and anything which promotes reduced consumption is a good thing. Prices in Canada are currently much more favorable than most other places. There are other things that the government can do to help. Some of it with that money. The first point is pretty obvious. Higher gas prices means that the government makes more in tax revenue from oil and gas. At a time of economic uncertainty, when the government is already trying to spend its way out an economic crisis this is actually a bit of good luck. And we shouldn't turn around and piss that money away. The second point is also kind of obvious. The straight of Hormuz being closed means that there is less oil and gas to go around. We shouldn't be cutting prices to help us pretend that this isn't...

Sometimes things make a lot more sense in retrospect. The difficulty jumping from a 10kg yumi to a 14kg yumi was one of those things for me. For those whose jaw dropped reading that, I will preface this by saying that the draw weight I chose based on a recommendation by my instructor and that I actually went with a lighter draw weight than was recommended. I can't remember the exact recommendation but it was 15-16kg. I also did use a 15kg once before the purchase and was able to draw it. But I was already tired and couldn't tell how much of the difficulty was due to fatigue vs. the bow itself. It has been over 2 months now. It is still somewhat difficult getting into DAISAN.  It isn't a completely alien feeling any more and it is much more manageable. I can also keep shooting through at least 2 dozen arrows now. Which is to say; progress. I do miss how much easier my 10kg dojo bow felt. I'm actually considering getting a second bow; either a 12kg or a 16kg. The idea is ...

This will be more of a normal journal entry. I think it is worth stating these things, but it doesn't feel very formal or informational. Here are some things I've encountered so far: Humility Not knowing all of the terms for the associated equipment Equipment mistakes (poor tsuruwa construction) Concerns Storage and blind-spots in care/maintenance  Excitement New "toy" Learning new things and overcoming some of the above Knowing I still have even more to learn So, yeah "humility".  I will admit now that I was not properly prepared for this moment. I think that, for next year, I will recommend more equipment maintenance lectures. There is definitely more for me to learn with regards to how to maintain my equipment and even what all of the individual items are. The first mistake was confusing the uchifukuro with a yumibukuro. To be fair, we only use the uchifukuro in the dojo and they both have the same basic form. In fact, both even have VERY similar dimensio...

My bow arrived today. A 14kg Jikishin 2. Up 4kg from the bow I was using at the dojo. And I feel... humbled. Some of it was expected. Some was not. All of it is good though. Experiences. Expected was the extra time to make my first nakajikake for the new bow. I haven't done one in over a year. I made a slight mistake in the direction I wrapped the top of the tsuru, but fixed it. Beyond that, I haven't had a chance to shoot with it yet, and while I did test out a similar bow at the dojo recently, I only fired two arrows with it. I expect to be humbled further the first time I need to make it through a full practice with it. I also expected to hit issues with the nigirikawa. Never wrapped one before. It went a lot better than I expected. It isn't perfect, but it is actually a lot closer to perfect than I expected. Next time I need to go a bit slower in the wrapping and make sure the edges are flush. Perhaps even a bit more than flush. I don't remember seeing the tiny gaps...

So, the latest buzz is about the deal between China and Canada which allows the 100% EV tariff to be dropped on some number of sales, starting at 49000 and increasing over the term of the agreement. The skepticism is whether cheaper EVs will actually show up, or if already present companies like Tesla and Volvo will simply consume the quota and pocket the difference.   Honestly, I don't think that the deal was really about EVs but rather about reopening trade negotiations and tossing rural canola farmers a lifeline. However, I also think that the cheaper EVs will come.  The doubters think EVs aren't profitable enough in the first place, or as mentioned that greedy companies will simply hoover up the allocations. As you can tell, I have a bit of a disagreement. Problem #1 is China and export controls. With the number of units able to dodge the tariff being limited, I find it highly unlikely that China won't impose its own controls on top of these exports. Which is to say, ...

A new format and process for my Kyudo posts. I'm going to start by summarizing before I write. This is to keep me on topic before I write. Then I'll provide glossary of Kyudo terms at the beginning, followed by the post.   Glossary: YUGAERI (弓返り) - The way the bow rotates as the arrow is fired, bringing the string around to the outer forearm. TENOUCHI (手の内) - The proper way to grip the bow in Kyudo.  YUNDE (弓手) - The (left) hand which holds the bow.  METE (馬手) - The (right) glove hand.  UCHIOKOSHI (打ち起こし) -  The fourth stage of shooting in Kyudo where the bow is raised up above the head. HIKIWAKE (引き分け) - This fifth stage of shooting in Kyudo, where the draw of the bow begins. DAISAN (大三) - A intermediate in stage during HIKIWAKE where there is a pause before proceeding into KAI. KAI (会) - The sixth stage of shooting in Kyudo. Stretching out in forward and back into a full draw. HANARE (離れ) - The seventh stage of shooting in Kyudo. The point where the arrow is r...

My last post talked about how I use AI to help with some Japanese language learning. That process reminded me of one of my biggest nags about it; it always seems to want to start a conversation. Is that a problem? Context, I suppose, is everything here. I didn't ask Gemini to act like a friend or to try and converse with me. I asked it to help me with my translations. Regardless, every single chat prompt would end with it asking me some sort of follow up question. Most of those didn't even revolve around learning Japanese. I should be able to specify that I only want it to answer the questions and not provide any follow up or additional conversational elements. And it should listen. I don't agree that it should be the default.  Now, you might ask, "why is this a problem"?  Because running AI isn't free. The data centers running these things are power hungry, ecological nightmares. And these LLMs have gotten very good at conversing. But there is no value to hav...

I think a good way to understand the proper usage of AI is with a practical example. From a coding perspective, I don't always have a ready made example, but I use it with my language learning in a similar fashion, and my Japanese is poor enough still that I can pick an arbitrary sentence of enough complexity and benefit from it. I recently switched from Windows to Linux on my computer and finally setup my Japanese Input. This sentence was something I wanted to convey in a group chat in Japanese earlier. My first step in just a normal stream of though. What is my first best guess at how to form this sentence? 最近パソコンに「Windows」から「Linux」までかえました、そして遂に今日は日本語の入力が設定された。 Next question: How confident am I in that answer? Honestly, this one I felt was about 60% of the way there. My guess was that it was coherent, but that there were things I could improve upon to make it more natural sounding. So, next step. Can I think of any ways on my own, after re-reading this, to improve on it further? ...