Diffusion of Swear Words in Japan

An article published last year in Physical Review E analyzes the diffusion of swear words in Japan. (This is not obvious from the abstract, so take a look at the .pdf file if you have institutional access to the journal.)

Here is a brief excerpt: The most beautiful example of Yanagita’s theory is the distribution of swear words. The Japanese are not known for their frequent use of swear words, but if you nevertheless are cursed at by someone with baka (∼stupid person), the one you are having trouble with is probably from Tokyo. If you instead hear aho (∼dumb), he or she is most likely from the Kyoto-Osaka area. The confrontation between these two swear words is so clear that it is considered by the people as a part of the competition between the two major cultural centers.

(Tip of the cap to Sang Hoon Lee.)

Tsunami Benchmarks

Randy LeVeque (Progessor of Applied Mathematics at University of Washington) and his collaborators have set up a Tsunami Benchmark to share data and code for Japan tsunami simulations.

(Tip of the cap to SIAM.)

He Might Want to Try Using the "Aristocrats" Joke Again

Gilbert Gottfried might want to use "The Aristocrats" joke again after he got himself fired from his role as the Aflac Duck for making insensitive comments about the situation in Japan via twitter in an attempt at humor that went over like a lead balloon.

I hadn't actually realized that Gottfried provided the voice of the duck, and given Gottfried's grating voice (for which he is best known), that's actually pretty cool. As described in the wikipedia entry for the Aristocrats joke (as well as in the movie about the joke), Gottfried made some 9/11 based jokes only 3 weeks after the event. When those didn't go over well at all (so there's a bit of a history here...), he rescued himself by switching to the Aristocrats and doing a massively funny version of the joke.

Gottfriend does seem like quite the douchebag, doesn't he?

Visualization of the Tsunami's Propagation (and a Few Thoughts)

Here is a very pretty vizualization of the tsunami that arose from the magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan. Somehow I tend to treat these things with a mixture of scientific fascination and more common human emotions.

One of the impressive things about the natural disaster is that the coast of Japan has apparently shifted by 8 feet. Also impressive is the fact that earth's axis has been shifted by almost 4 inches. The part that I think I find the scariest is the issue of nuclear meltdown. I'm more used to extreme situations like this in things like SimCity, where it doesn't actually count.

One of the reasons I find this scary is that I am from Los Angeles, so I automatically wonder whether something like this will happen there while I'm still around to witness it. I know it's all hands on deck at Caltech when earthquakes occur, but magnitude 8.9 is pretty damn scary.

(Tip of the cap to Kevin Hickerson for the visualization.)

Big in Japan

Eri Yoshida, age 17 and Japan's first female professional baseball player, made her debut on Friday in the newly-formed Kansai Independent League (which is basically a minor league). A knuckleball pitcher who grew up wanting to emulate Tim Wakefield, she picked up a strikeout. As Rob Neyer points out, her small size is probably going to be her largest hurdle, but this is still awesome and I hope she gets very far.

It's much better than pretending to be a barrel!

Courtesy The California Tech, people in Japan are apparently trying to hide from prospective attackers by pretending to be vending machines. (The second link includes a picture.) You can find a video of this urban camouflage in action here.

Wow. I never thought the world would have sunk to such depths.