Author: sin0928yano@gmail.com

It is very hot in Sydney. But it is finally summer here in Sydney. The weekend was especially hot. I could not sleep well.

Investing: The market is moving a lot these days. there is a lot of news going around. I just merely catch up them. This week I have been waiting for one of my shares to sell and trying to find the best time by using Bollinger Bands and MACD. The share kept going up and finally I decided to wait. Both chartings helped me a lot. I am hoping I could sell next week. I would like to buy gold and a gold mining company in Australia sharemarket. This one also I am waiting for the best time. A gold mining company I am trying to buy is, I believe, a good company. But it could be overvalued but anyway I would like to have gold as part of my portfolio in long term. Gold could be appreciated in the next several decades. I will keep it in long term at least as 10 per cent of my financial asset. As for the stock market in Japan, Nikkei stock is going up steadily. It has reached about 26600 something in Nikkei 225. If it reaches 30000, it could be very historical points. That means 30 years high. As a Japanese, I believe this is huge. Japanese people have financial asset mostly with cash. Why? Because people could have not felt a growth on stocks for 30 years. But this could change their minds. I can see the momentum here. Maybe I could write more sometime here in the future

Physics: I keep learning physics. This week we’re calm. I am writing a grant application to the Taiwanese government. For the next 3 years of my research plan. I would like to pursuits several important subjects in condensed matter physics by using neutron inelastic scattering and polarized neutron scattering techniques. I am not sure I can succeed it or not. I will try my best on this proposal. I would like to offer a very successful, cost-efficient, and high-quality science project benefit Taiwanese tax payers.

Reading: Reading is good. I am reading “Killing Commendatore” by Haruki Murakami. I am enjoying it. Also, “Top stocks 2021” by Martin Roth and “Investing Wisdom” by Brett Kelly. I am investing in Australia and Australian companies sometimes but I can really find a nice book on it. These two books give me starting points. I am using Top stock to list up to start the research my own. For “Investing Wisdom”, I would like to know move about investor here and their thinking. Also, they are institutional investor, their institution sometimes shares its research on the website. I can learn from them. I enjoy reading!

Music: I should have played more guitar…

Running: I kept running in the morning. But these days, it is very very hot. I had to be careful.

This week has been calm. At work, reactor shutdown goes longer than expected so we can’t experiment so I am working calculation, planning or writing manuscripts instead. I don’t check Australian share much, but I feel Australian share is coming back steadily this week, my portfolio recovers nicely because of coal price is coming back.

Physics: I have gotten a review request from one of the prestigious journal in physics. The journal covers all area of physics and new physics. I am honoured to review one of the manuscripts. In the beginning, I felt it is too early for me to review that level of physics. But I will try my best. Basically, the manuscript has been rejected by another referee before me, authors claim the referee has failed to understand the importance of physics they found. The first referee claims that there is no new physics on their work. Unfortunately, I felt the same way with the first referee. Editor asked me to reevaluate their work to see if we have a strong reason to publish the work. He already thought that even after authors claim, he agrees with the first referee. The manuscript does not have a high quality of new physics. But the journal gives an alternative view (my view?) on the paper. So I have to evaluate the paper has

1. Substantially advanced the field
2. Open a significant new area of research
3. Solve a critical outstanding problem or making a significant step toward solving the problem
4. Are the results of great general interest.

I feel honoured but I feel a responsibility now. But the feeling is not bad. I will try my best to contribute to the history of physics.

Investing: This week. fortunately, my portfolio advanced substantially, but as you know, the short term does not matter much. Anyways, I feel great. Lately, I am learning a lot about charting to analyze the market. I am using MACD to know the trend but still, it will take some time to understand this. By learning about investing in books and Youtube, I have many ideas to try but I don’t have many funds to invest. Haha. But keep learning and doing research, keep a record to invest. Maybe I can write something sometime soon.

Book: I am thinking of writing a book review again. I would start again from neutron scattering which is my expertise in physics. Currently, I am reading the autobiography of the founder of Charles Schwab. I am enjoying his story. He gave me a lot of insight on investing and how to lead life. There is always something interesting we can find in a book. Keep reading and keep learning.

Music: I havent played much recently… Oh no, I will find time.

So anways, today is on Monday, it is bit late. But this is the update from 3rd week of November.

Last week, from 9th to 13th of November, was conference week, I have attended the annual meeting of Japanese society of neutron scattering (JSNS2020) and ANBUG and AINSE neutron scattering symposium (AANSS2020). Both are online, so I could attend both meetings. I enjoyed attending while I missed the feeling of attending the conference. For this kind of conference, I just joined talks or sessions which I was interested in while working at my office. Like I am listening online seminar but I didn’t feel attending a conference at the same place, communicating people, exchange opinions. When I went to the conference, we usually don’t have anything else to do, we can focus on learning new finding from colleagues and we all feel we are part of the conference. But this time, I did not feel that way. Usually, we have an opening ceremony and ending ceremony, that gives me the sense of attending the conference. This time, I miss some of them, so it is like just a bunch of seminar started.

Reading: after “Go by Kazuki Kaneshiro”, now I am reading “How dogs love us” by Gregory Berns. I am not familiar with this kind of scientific experiment but it turns out not much has been done in this field. In addition to the contents of scientific results, the author also showed readers how difficult to set up the experiment on a dog. Firstly, administrative job, University want to minimise the risk of an experiment, and this kind of experiment is rare so experimentalist has to prepare a lot. I did not know dogs are not allowed in University campus. Even after the administrative jobs, the next challenge is how to scan the brain of moving dogs on fMRI, which is expensive to experiment with limited research funding. Authors finally got an excellent result, that shows dogs have a mental map as humans do. I am still reading the book but the understanding of feeling or thinking of dogs is quite interesting. Dogs have social intelligence and dogs communicate with humans better than apes. The book is about just 2 years of rearch of dogs, but I feel they should come more in the future in many groups around the world.

My stomach has not been good for a long time. I refuse to take any medicine for some of my stupid belief that medicine is not good to my body. Finally, I took some this week and I am feeling better than before. My quality of life is much better. So, now my feeling is back. My enthusiasm is back. I am convinced how the health is important throughout our life.

What am I building in my life? As a physicist, I have worked on creating knowledge by publishing a paper. I would like to challenge many of the scientific fields. I am experimentalist so I will perform the experiment and data analysis. Creating data is one of important work and adding value by analysing it. Publishing data could be my making product and selling them by making a presentation or sharing it publicly. As a runner, my goal is staying healthy and motivated. I think now I need to give a bit harder training to run faster. Hopefully, I can join some race next year. As a reader or English learner, I am doing pretty well. But why am I doing this? That is right, that is to improve the writing skills especially on publication. So what I need to do is reading and writing more by writing. Publishing paper, writing grants, writing blogs, writing emails. Writing is creating things. We need practice but never give up writing good ones by writing a lot.

Other things could be building financial stability. While earning some money by working, I am constantly investing shares in Australia. I don’t know the future of this country or the world but I can try to believe in capitalism to some extent….. Instead of making money solely from working, I would like to build financial stability to do what I want to do in my life. As long as I am doing these reasonable ways, I am convinced it takes a while even I can luckily find a nice company to invest in. Just keep learning business and investing. Maybe after 5 to 10 years, I can build something. Learning is always good. I am making a decision every month to invest in form salary. Less spend money now and invest more for the future. This year, it hit hard because of COVID-19, but I would think in long term.

What I am working these days. I had my health problem for several years and now my strength is back. I keep updating here what I am thinking of the field I am working on.

Physics: We got a good paper in Nov.6 from Advanced Science. We got a cover letter from the journal, that makes me very happy. Also, this paper form Taiwan where I work for. Now, Taiwan is creating top-level science with neutron scattering. I am an instrument scientist of cold triple-axis spectrometer, I am now a better understanding of the instrument and related science after I work here almost 6 years now. I would like to improve my understanding of physics. I am in the position of one of the most experienced scientists in using triple-axis spectrometer. I should do more work and I should know the neutron science better. I also got a referee request from one of the prestigious physical journal. I am honour to review the paper and give me a chance to learn more. I have made a poster presentation today in Australia. It is good to keep going to serving science community.

Investing: I am learning more about investing by doing invest. My understanding of investing is gradually better. I would think learning about money is one of the best education you can do for yourself. But the learning curve is rather slower than I expected. At the time of writing, Biden got elected as the U.S. President, things could swing in the next several months or even years. On the other hand, I am hearing record high in the stock market in the U.S., Japan, and Korea. It seems people are excited about investing in stocks. For me, it does not matter, I just research whatever the way I learned, I make my own decision, invest, take responsibility.

Reading: I just finished reading a book “Go by KAZUKI KANESHIRO translated by TAKAMI MIEDA”. The book is about the story of Zainichi in Japan. As a Japanese, I knew they exist. But I have not involved enough to know their life. I have made a lot of friends with a Korean name. To be honest, I even have never asked they are Zainichi or foreign students. I learned that they can be North-Korean or South-Korean citizenship. Maybe I just don’t know them good enough to know their hardship living in Japan. The book is good, this is a love story but basically, the book describes how Japanese society treats them and how they survive in Japan. The book gives me a new way to look at my country. What does nationality mean? What does ethnicity mean? What does race mean? I was born and raised in Japan but I have lived in the U.S. and am living in Australia now. This is the question I am thinking always.

Anything else? I am not doing much on running and playing the guitar. What else I am thinking? I am feeling great about learning English. I am reading and listening to books in English which is my second language. I am enjoying them so I just enjoying learning English by just reading books. This is great. Now, I am focusing more on vocabularies. I want to learn more, then I should be able to read more and better. Hopefully, I can speak and write Englis better. Maybe I will start writing the book review.

That’s it for today. Thank you for reading. I will keep on writing.

 

I am not economist so I don’t know but I want to make some sense on Australian Economy. Since I was born in Japan, had lived in the U.S. and am living in Australia. I can see the clear differences between Japan, the U.S., and Australia. So today, I would challenge myself to understand, at least make sense, on Australian economy. I wanted to write this when I understand Australia fully but it never happens anyway. And I wanted to make clear on what I felt when I just came this country, I honestly thought like “what is wrong with the economy of this country?” After living few years, my feeling was bit relieved, I might say paralyzed,  but it is good time to reflect on it to have conclusion.  

 The biggest question here is why I have to pay so much for properties, foods, and daily essentials even though I am paid better than in Japan and the U.S.? Economic indicators look solid at a first glance for people outside of Australia however you quickly realize you don’t feel richness as indicators tell you if you live here. You will get higher salary but you have to pay a lot for almost everything. If the world were truly global, this economy would have to be adjusted. But it seems not. Anyways. Let’s see the facts backed by data. Again, I am not economist so please excuse me if I am using wrong parameters to see.

 Let’s see 9 factors in Australian economy to get snapshot. The data was published Federal Reserve Bank Australia published March 8, 2017. GDP growth 2.4 % annually, inflation rate 1.5 %, cash rate (interest rate) 1.5% , Australia dollar A$=US$0.7671, Population 24.1 million, with 1.4 % annual growth, unemployment rate 5.8 % (which is suppose to be 5 % is full employment, so 0.8 % people are out of work). Average weekly Earning $1162, Household saving ratio 6.3 %, Residential dwellings $631000, these are 8 of them. I will talk about industry share of output key factors later.

Did you get snapshot? Yes? I realized that I had believed this country is growing but it is not. Australia is supposed to, and people still believe, have fundamentally strong economy since GDP of Australia grows faster than that of developed countries, such as Japan, the U.S, and Europeans. I was blindly thinking so too. But see, its GDP grows 2.4 % annually, while inflation rate is 1.5 %, and its population grow 1.4 %. (Figure (A)) They are not getting richer? No. Now I am feeling Japan is not bad after all. GDP grows slowly while its population is shrinking and they are in deflation for long time. And Japan has no natural resources as Australia does. So next question is when this slowing started? As long as I find in few years data, it has been for at least 3 years.  It is convincing that the wage is not growing and A$ is getting cheaper last 5 years. 

“Many people are struggling to make ends meet. We have the lowest wage growth in a generation.” Treasurer Scott Masison said in March, 2017. I see.  Average weekly Earning $1162 but grew only 1.6 % in 2016, and saving ratio 6.3 % and drop rapidly since last July. So Australia is not growing as I thought. Growing slow is not problem. But, Australia now is the problem. The problem is Australia has gone 25 years makes people here paralyzed like they are doing O.K. even when they are not. There are two big problems, they are mining boom and housing bubble. 

Australia is called “Lucky country”, people outside of this countries have called them so enviously.  Australia continent is huge and weather is very nice. People can enjoy gorgeous beaches and mountains and there are not so many people here. Australia is fundamentally strong country. They have mining, so they can sell iron ore and coal. They have become rich while they took it for granted too much. Mining boom has ended as China is running slow. As the author of Boom to bust put it “Australia was then in the middle of the biggest mining boom in its history, stemming from increased demand in China. In the decade to 2012, the value of its mined exports tripled; mining investment rose from 2% of GDP to 8%. From January 2003 to February 2011 the price of iron ore, which these days comprises 17% of Australia’s exports by value, rose from $13.8 to $187.2 a tonne. Australian thermal coal, which accounts for 12% of its exports, rose from $26.7 to $141.9” Mining industry became too big compared to the size of Australian economy and it is going to fail.

 Who buys iron and coal? China, South Korea, and Japan. The biggest problem now is China. China is growing slowly now but the Chinese government says China would grow 6.5 percent every year? Since GDP = C + I + G + (Ex-Im), the  authority can directly control is only government spending. My friend told me Shanghai’s road are remade every few years. They are throwing money just to make up the GDP growth. The communism still would keep country running but the world have to adjusted sometime in the future. But the problem here is Australia depends too much on China. 

 So the next is housing bubble.  I don’t know how many people have been taking seriously. As experience of Japan and the U.S.. I know this very well. Let’s look at stock market here, I can give you link. (http://www.marketindex.com.au/all-ordinaries) And you can plot companies market capitalization and growth last year. You can get it? If you don’t get it, I can give you a hint. Look at top 4 (if this is too easy for you, then 5th). If you don’t get it, you should learn history. Commonwealth Bank (CBA), National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ, and Westpac (WBC) are known as the Big 4 banks in Australia, controlling more than 80% of the domestic banking business. Globally, no one has heard these banks. They should be too big to fail because they are controlling 80 %. Have you read the too big to fail. Just one Lehman Brothers could shake entire American economy. Big 4 is too too big.

 Then next is residential properties. Australia’s foreign investment policy for residential real estate is very clear, it is basically saying non resident foreigner has to buy newly build new properties, which leads to further bubble, who is going to live new properties after the Chinese leave?  People buy home not to live but to invest. How come REIT market here is ranked 3rd largest REIT market in the world, which is 9.86 trillion yen? (2nd Japan 11.17 trillion yen and 1st U.S 85.52 trillion yen). Japan’s GDP is three times larger than here and its population is at least 5 times larger than that of Australia. Can you believe it? So finally, as shown in Figure (B), residential properties is growing, earnings stay almost same, so naturally the average of household debt is growing (Figure (C)).

 Here I add finally 9th factor, industry share odf output key factors they are Service 59 %, retail trade 5% , construction 9%, manufacture 7% , mining 6% , and the rest 14 %  as shown in Figure (I didn’t get the number for agriculture this country should do very good.).  Did you get it? There are too much of banking (I didn’t get the number either), retail, construction, and mining industry, is this developed country? I don’t think so. What would happen when both mining and housing have problem? How this country comes back after the bubble collapse?

 This really depends on how China lands finally. I know China can avoid collapsing for a while but history told us they can’t do it forever. I am a Japanese, I know it. As no one in America and European had not believed Japanese had said before they have experienced bubble collapse. I know China and Australia don’t believe us. Now China and then Australian, people says “this time is or we are different” I know it is not. And I know everyone used to say so.

I have gotten my vacation in April. I am pretty happy about it. So, I booked hotel in Tokyo after some research. It is a bit weird since Japan is my home country and I had live in Tokyo suburb for more than 10 years however I didn’t know hotels much to be honest. It is because, you know, I didn’t need to stay there when I was living. Anyways, so I have looked over more than 300 hotels in Tokyo and asked a number of friends living in Tokyo which hotel I should stay.

Also inbound tourism in Japan is booming now, foreign tourists have been increasing since 2011 from almost all countries. The tourists of the year of 2011 dropped dramatically because of earthquake. Since then, the foreign tourists in 2013 exceed 10 million (2013) and increased 13.4 million (2014), 19.4 million (2015), and finally reached 24.0 million (2016). Japanese government expects 40 millions in Olympic year 2020. I wanted to write more about Japanese inbound tourism in the future so I will compare this statics in future to talk about tourism in Japan. For this post, I will talk only about hotel because some people now might be interested in hotels in Tokyo.

So anyways,

Tonight, I am privileged to announce this year’s best outstanding hotel in Shin’s awards 2017 is given Tokyo “Hotel New Otani”.

Shut up. I am writing.

I will give the reasons why I choose Hotel New Otani.

I will talk about old Big three, new Big three, and Big three in 21^st century. But first I will think about why hotel staying is important to talk about.

Firstly I will talk about how you spend money in Japan. Figure (left) shows that the consumption by a foreign tourist estimated by Japan tourism agency. The transportation expense looks low. I believe this is because more than 80 percent of tourists are from Asia, the numbers are roughly, Europe+America+Oceania 12.7%, East Asia 72.7%, South East Asia 11%, and the rest is only 5%. And of course Chinese people are buying a lot now, Shopping seems very high right now but it will settle. Finally for food, foreign tourists want to do most in Japan is eating Japanese food based on research from Japanese National Tourism Organization (JNTO). So, you might know more than me what to eat and where to go. For this post, let’s look at accommodation which is 2nd largest expense after shopping, to maximize your satisfaction for staying in Japan.

So next figure (right), this is satisfaction function based on my personal feeling as function of yen. I plot the scale with log (yen) in transverse axis so watch out. As you can see, there might be 4 area, you Budget hotels, Standard hotel, Upper class hotel, and Luxulay hotel. I will write about more in Budged hotel later. For the standard, I don’t have good impression the price typically ¥7000-¥12000 (like US$61-104) but they all looks same services is not bad level. As for luxury ones are really expensive cost more than ¥30000 (like $260USD). I would rather spend more money for food since the best sushi restaurant (the really best and expensive) costs $300-500 at most. Typically, you can find best and really food less than $100. Food is like $5-20 if you find reasonably good ones. Praise the Japan’s 20 year’s deflation!! So here, I really recommend the hotel Upper class when you are traveling in Japan, the range should be like 15000-30000 (like US$130-260 per night).

Finally I would start talking hotel in Tokyo.

There are Old Big three hotels in Japan. These are Hotel New Otani, Imperial Hotel, and Hotel Okura. Hotel Okura main is now under renovation for Olympic game year. Annex is still available. Hotel Okura, some people remember from Steve Jobs’ biography, is the hotel he used to stay when he had business in Japan. There are descriptions in the book story about eating Unagi sushi with his daughter. I think you can go there only for sushi restaurant too. Imperial hotel is also very good hotel, I would recommend staying there also. But it might not be best recommendation for today.

The next in new Big three hotels in Tokyo, they are Hotel Chinzanso US$292, Westin $293, and Parkhyatt US$668. Of course, you can try them. They are getting expensive like you see. They should be great hotels, but it costs very much to me.

Finally, new Big three in 21^st century hotels Ritz-Carlton US$604 Mandarin US$636, and Peninsula US$930, so American started building 5 stars hotels in Tokyo since 2000 roughly. They are not any of Big threes but as I put these two hotels as reference, they are Grand Hyatt (unknown) and 4SEASON (US$1695).  I can’t sleep every hour costs almost $100? I must feel 100 percent satisfaction. I should be able to sleep well, or can’t I?

Now you got idea.

Are you ready to listen to the price of Hotel New Otani?

 

It’s US$152.

I know, I know, it is like FREE, right?

Don’t you think so, old sport?

 

They are one of old Big three. They have really beautiful Japanese garden (http://www.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/garden/index.html) and 38 nice restaurants, and very close to Imperial palace and any famous places to visit in Tokyo. You can see a lot of green even if you are staying in Tokyo. To be fair, I put price the other old big three they are Imperial hotel $430, Hotel Okura $237. One concern I have for New Otani might be the number of room, they might have too many so too many customers. But, as you can see the figure below, the New Otani is the exceptional. This is my final answer as you see below.

Also some people might want to use Airbnb. I am not familiar with it so, sorry, I can’t write but I heard there are plenty of them and some of them are really nice. Whilst, I would like to recommend Budget hotels for some people who are interested in,

If you are bookwarm, Book and rest should be best,

http://bookandbedtokyo.com/en/tokyo/index.html

http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Japan-Trends/Reading-drinking-sleeping-all-in-one-bookshop

If you are a railfan, a railway company renovated train for hotel

http://trainhostelhokutosei.com/en/

http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Japan-Trends/One-time-flophouses-fit-the-bill-for-budget-travelers-in-Japan

If you were women, there are capsule hotels for women

http://nadeshiko-hotel.jp/yado-lodging.html

http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Japan-Trends/One-time-flophouses-fit-the-bill-for-budget-travelers-in-Japan

If you want to make friends from traveler from everywhere, Sakura hostel is the hotel you should choose. Also they can provide a lot of event while you stay in Japan

https://www.sakura-hotel.co.jp/

So this is my observation, I haven’t stayed New Otani yet to be honest. So I might report after I stay there in April if you want me to. I hope this helps someone to look for accommodation in Tokyo in near future. Enjoy staying Tokyo, Japan. Thank you for reading.

(I used currency conversion US$1=115 yen, US$1 = 0.7595 A$, the price of hotel is an online travel service, the price was quoted on 27th Feb. 2017 for April weekday’s one night stay)

‘These days, I was thinking about a lot about “losing”. This is mainly because of life and chess I have learnt recently. So then finally I came to think back on Game theory to reflect on my life again. I don’t know either John von Neumann or Oskar Morgenstern came up with “Game theory” but naming “The Game theory” is brilliant. This is more like the study of strategic interactive decision making among rational players. No one starts learning this study with this naming strategic…. but you might be interested in the study is called the game theory.

I started writing this because of my friends comment about why people need to think about what the opponent thinks in the game. He is playing shogi and I started playing chess. So that was a profound question and I wanted to understand too. Then I started reading the game theory books back, I just have digested some of my questions I have had recently so I am writing.

So firstly, I started from the question I wanted to answer to my friend. To start with I need to talk from minmax theory. Let’s think about 2 basketball teams are in the game. Point is for A. Both teams can choose fast or slow attack (move or strategy, I am not sure what is called in game), if you were A’s couch, which move you would need to choose in this game?

So you chose fast game, B will chose also fast. A probably wins. This is so called minmax strategy, you chose fast because you are trying to minimize your loss to maximize your benefit. You don’t chose slow game, you might get 3 but if B realize you are choosing slow game, they would play fast game to make you lose. So you end up -1 if you choose A1. You got it?

O.K, we can think of a bit more complicated game next. You can chose one of three moves, also B can chose also one of three moves. In this situation which moves you need to choose?

Let’s break down this situation, since you are A, you can chose A1, A2, or A3. Among them you won’t chose A1 over A2 because A2 does better against every move you chose even whatever B does. So the matrix can be easier like follow,

You just clear the A1, let’s think on the other moves. You can now think about what the opponent think. You get the idea, B should not chose B2 because B1 does better against every moves on A. So you can do minimize the matrix again.

Now you get idea, as A you will chose A2 over the A3 so finally you and opponent end up with choosing A2-B2 .

Let’s come back original situation. You now understand very well. Firstly we chose, so you should choose. So, now you realized you needed to choose your strategy after B thinks. He should chose column B1 because, for him, B1 column is better than B2.

O.K. We finally got same conclusion. From A, you can chose minimax theory though, it not so clear why you need to choose A2, but know you need to think what B would do. So, sometimes you can easily see better choice by seeing what the opponent see the game. If I could prove it by this simple game, so you could see a lot of opportunities in real situations. So consider what the opponent thinks on field.

So next lesson is what I have learnt recently. Since 21th century is brutal age, the place I am living in Australia is not exceptional. I was looking for a room to share with, so I heard some guy was going to move out, I contacted, he said it should be O.K to take over his room then he suggested taking over his furniture too. We ended up with not renting his room though, since he is moving far from here he had to sell out all his stuff anyway. So, I was still interested in buying his TV so negotiation started,

Here is my decision making tree

So, by doing my homework, I did know I can buy 65inch 4k TV with A$800 at store with 1 year warranty. A$800 is maximum I want to pay for this second hand TV. I can go negotiate if he says TV is under A$800. (by going up on first branch).

Since he had to fly to move to the other place where is far from our town. So he needed to sell all out before he moves especially for big furniture in a week. For him, getting higher even A$1 is win so I can basically negotiate down to A$1 but I didn’t wanted to push hard since I doubted something fishy going on if the TV was too cheap he knows so he might have wanted to sell whatever prices? Or I push too much he might have done something terrible so both might lose. (3^rd of second branch). So I would say A$300-A$600 is reasonable price for both of us.

And I also wanted to point out, in this game, I can’t lose because basically, I can almost always postpone to purchase. I can go store to by A$800 TV with 1 year warranty from store. So, I can always let this deal go, because I don’t need to have TV, I just was thinking of it is nice to have it if it is reasonable price. On the other hand, he had better sell it because he was moving out in a week.

O.K. So, are ready to meet him?

He originally offered A$1000 if I bought everything he had. He said “I want to raise the price because you are not buying all of my stuff, I would say $1200?”

???

What did he say?

Lessons :

1. Don’t forget to do your homework, information asymmetricity is brutal.
2. Game is for rational people. I was totally at better position, why did he want more from me?
3. I don’t like the people who want to win even though the other loses. I would love to find ways both win or both little lose.

What I have learned was information is powerful. Maybe he didn’t know the price of TV he is offering is not attractive anymore in the market. You had better have more and more accurate information to make decision is better. We have to know comfortable enough to make these decisions. You should be able to know what reasonable price is for you. We should define as happiness functions as money as a main parameter in this case.

So irrationality, that surprised me why so people make irrational decisions without looking at the situation carefully. So now I am ready to talk about next Presidential campaign and Brexit to think about populism. But, it is time to go, maybe next time.

Reference

[1]Game theory training by Akira Aizawa; Kanki Publishing. (in Japanese)

I am now at Grenoble, France, Institute of Laue Langvin. I need to do experiment there to do experiment under high pressure environment. I hope I can get nice result like I got in Japan this month. Anyways, I have to publish the result as soon as possible. I am writing and analyzing data too slow. It seems the experiment is finally working somehow after struggling for 5 days, I hope I can get some result by tomorrow.

I have been writing one about Game theory, the question started from why we have to think what our opponent thinks when we are on the game. The question came from one of my Facebook friends who is playing shogi. I was wondering the same question with him since I have started play chess recently too. I could understand intuitively but I could not explain. Now, I can explain now with Game theory. Then, I can describe how we are making decision with using tools from game theory so I will use one of my life events happened to me recently. Finally, I will explain what I am thinking about rational decision making. I hope I can do some argument on populism happening now in the world.

I think next thing I can write is about reading. As for reading, I read 100 books in 2016, which is worst record since I started recording. I read them in English I haven’t counted reading in Japanese though. However, I am pretty sure what I am reading are unique. I will start short summary or thoughts on books. I don’t think I can write book summary yet in English. I will start 5 books per blog with short thought on these books.

And then English, I wanted to practice English better. I am living English speaking countries for more than 4 years? I don’t think my English proficiency is improving. I am not working hard anymore since I can communicate with people. Now, I wanted to improve English skills for reading, speaking, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and listening. I know how to do it but I believe and I am lazy these days. As I learnt form Grit by Angela Duckworth and many other studies on talent I have been reading, I am convinced I have to practice better and deeper, to do that, I have to measure English level somehow. Each English skill is not independent so if I can improve one of them, it should help the other. I am focusing on vocabulary now. I would like to take English test in Sydney. I didn’t take them here because taking English tests here are super expensive, really. But now I am starting now.

During this Japan trip from Jan 31st – Feb 4th, I have met a lot of collaborators and friends. I am glad to see them and they are doing very well. I found out living in Japan is comfortable. Food was good, I don’t need to use foreign language, and I know where to go. I used a state of art instrument at J-PARC with one of the best talented young scientist from our generation helped to me collect data though “young” means totally depends on how you define. The instrument is pretty good. We got really nice data. Because it contains a lot of information, it will be some time to publish the data. I will do my best. As for positron accelerator, we have SNS, Oak Ridge in the U.S. and J-PARC, Tokai, in Japan, ISIS in U.K. J-PARC can be used with multi Ei method at chopper spectrometer, I could see advantages for multi Ei method and it is very promising while J-PARC increases its power soon.

Hi Everyone. Happy new year! How are you doing?

2016 was dramatic year, Brexit in U.K. to Trump in U.S.A. While, to me, Japan seemed to be pretty stable compared with other countries. I believe Japan has chance to contribute a lot to the world in this challenging era for next few years. I hope I can do something too. Also, 2016 was the year I felt strongly we are on the edge of information revolution. I could see stream of technological innovations lead to future of humanity for next few decades.

Throughout 2016, one thing stuck to my mind was “making decisions”, this is partially because my purpose of my life is ceaseless contentious improvement of my personality. So what are goals and how I set goals are my personal interest all the time. As an experimental physicist, I am supposed to make rational decisions based on observations and analysis otherwise we fail to discover new. This is also because by seeing from Brexit, Trump to also my personal life, I have wondered why people can’t make rational decisions. Then, of course, AI and singularity are coming, which I finally could see how it is coming so I have been thinking we have to teach machines our philosophy of life.

By looking back my life, I also have thought this is a big issue to me, making right decisions. So I started doing research on what being rational and making decisions were. So I have read back a number of books I have read and read a number of new books I was interested in, from economics, phycology to philosophy, and of course physics is always my main source of learning and observation.

I still remember when I read the book “predictably irrational” in 2009. And by learning back Game theory and so on, finally I realized why Dan Ariely put “Predictably” because we should have been able to predict it based on the game theory and economic behavior by mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern published 1944. Now, I understand little bit more why people make irrational decisions. I hope I can write some what I have learnt in near future, I can start from Game theory.

And yes, now I could see information revolution is a big revolution after agricultural and industrial revolutions. So I think we have to take this seriously, it might last for 200-300 years at least. By just looking back decades, we can think about 80’s = computer, 90’s = software, 00’s = web, and 10’s = mobile. You can guess which company had won these times, can’t you? So, what is coming 20’s? No one knows yet. But I believe AI should be coming after the IoT at earliest. IoTs might be, some people are betting on it.

If IoT was next big thing on 20’s, who would be going to win this 20’s? This time innovations might not be competition but more like co-creation. I believe Japan is now ready to lead these areas. As you know, American companies have won last 4 decades but I hope one of Japanese company could lead in next decade.

This is really exciting in history. Lot of things had been invented before 20th century has been reinvented. Media was reinvented, commerce (shopping) was reinvented, and now finance is being reinvented, then health care will be reinvented soon. If you see this as information revolution, it keeps going and going on so a lot of things will be reinvented, a lot of problems human could have not solved in the past will be solved.

Mobile to IoT has given us a lot of hints already. Think about smart phone and watch, they are collecting enormous information from your place to your blood pressure. In near future, this will expand exponentially, if there is a IoT, there is at least a sensor which would produce structured data. The number of sensors will expand much faster than that of smart phone. Estimation says the data produced by IoT exceed that of smart phone in 2 years and expand exponentially in 20 years.

This will become revolution for AI since they are fed large amount of structural data. The sensor of IoT will become their eyes. This is revolutionary because getting eyes has educated brains of animals and humans. That will happen for AI.

So we human and animals have all done sensing – recognition –  learning  – inference – action – sensing

i.e., see – know what is happening – understand situation – decide what to do – action – see, is learning process

for the science with human

measure – analyze and understand data – hypothesis –prove – measure – learning new

So huge amount data feed AI and making them to think, that would lead to singularity.

Sorry, I am talking things everyone knows. But for me, by seeing great change of people who are working for technology, I felt strongly I would love to contribute to scientific discovery too. I have realized I have to more focus on what no one else (even machines) can to contribute to future of humanity. Especially, I have been distracted by political or personal problems these days. Haha.

As measurement techniques and computations developed, we can detect phenomena previous generation hasn’t done, we are reaching stars again. We could recognize or understand better the problem we are having. So we and AI would work on the solution.

As for physics, I have found few new findings possibly great contributions to physics. Maybe they are just my mistakes. But, the reasons why I could find are one is because experiment techniques have advanced and the other is because I didn’t stop doing research while the other is not doing anymore. Of course, the finding problem is not goal at all. I have recognized the problems, but I just can’t still figure out to solve these problems yet. I am pretty excited to observed physics I have never seen while it is not easy job to solve the problems.

I must solve these problems. Otherwise, no one else would do. (If someone else did, I would be in big trouble. Haha.)

This year, 2016, I would like to challenge what I have done in 2016. I will have to beat easily me2016. Me2017 will do faster what me2016 had done with more efficiently and more focused. I will keep improve myself toward my goals along my purpose of my life which is ceaseless contentious improvement of my life.

1. I will solve a few big problems in condensed matter physics I have now. I will focus on these throughout 2017.
2. To know more about making decisions and apply to my life.
3. To know more about solving problems and keep improve skills to solve problem
4. Write up and think throw to understand these above two better. I had been careful what to write in public but I want to write more this year.

Thank you for reading. I hope you all have nice 2017, may the force, love, passion, happiness and health be with you. No one has seen 2017 looks like yet because we will make it.

Shinichiro Yano on 1/26/2017 in Sydney, Australia.