thank you

In case there are people wondering what happened to my blog:

I decided to make my entries private for the time being because it felt like my writings had become too personal.

Writing itself is something very personal to me, and lately, I find it difficult to be impersonal when I write.  But I realize that when I write something and make it public, it stays there, and it's different from words that are spoken.

I might look over what I've written and make some entries public if they're not too private.  I left my popular entries public but if anyone has other entries that they want to read again let me know.

I might come back but I don't know at the moment.  Sorry for the sudden change, and thanks for reading!

double standard

The Bangladeshi father of a twenty-two year old female TV personality is wanted for cheating to get money for unneeded health support.  He has run away to his home country, and his daughter has written on her blog that she hopes he will come back to Japan, and that she was sorry for "those who were offended by her father's behavior".

I wasn't really interested in this news until my own father told me what he thought about the reaction of the Japanese public.

A couple of years ago, a successful comedian was criticized when it turned out that his mother had been getting public assistance.  I don't remember well about the incident but I think part of the criticism was that the mother had asked for "unneeded public assistance".

There are some similarities between the two cases.  They were both about parents.  But the comedian ended up being criticized while the female TV personality ended up being sympathized (she has practically become a beautiful heroin who had become a model to support her horrible father and her poor family).  Was it because she had been giving money to her father?  Was it such a horrible thing that the comedian hadn't sent enough money to his mother?  Maybe he had.  But since when did children become parents?



Anyway, today is Tanabata -- the only day of the year when the prince and princess separated by the milky way meet each other.  If you make a wish, it's supposed to come true!

laundry

In Japan, there is a baseball tournament called Koshien (named after the stadium where the tournament is held) fought between top high school teams.  It's one of the biggest events that take place during the summer, and the whole nation cheers for the students who have dedicated their school life to baseball.  Spectators are moved by the intensity and eagerness of the students -- it reminds many people of their adolescent days when they had a big dream and nothing to lose.

Six years ago, a pitcher who happened to lead his team to a grand victory became a hero, not only because of his great pitching and cute looks, but because of the shockingly refined behavior he showed during the games -- he wiped his sweat with a clean blue handkerchief he neatly kept in his pocket.  It probably goes without saying that no one expected to see a handkerchief come out of a high school boy's pocket.  Not in a baseball stadium where students got covered in dirt and dust and sweat and wiped it all together with their sleeves.  The media decided to call him "ハンカチ王子 Prince Handkerchief", and since then, many famous people have been nicknamed Prince something.

Just an hour ago, I was introduced to 洗濯王子(Prince Laundry).  He was apparently a "laundry advisor" and was interviewed to tell us how to dry our laundry properly (so it wouldn't stink) during the rainy season.  Of course I do think it's important that our laundry smells nice.  Being an advisor is a great job.  But a "laundry advisor"??  I admit there were *some* useful advices but do we really need Prince Laundry to tell us that we need a fan if the air is too humid?

statistics

Do you think the following foods should be banned?

1.  A food that 98% of cancer patients have had daily
2.  A food that 96% of rapists ate the day they commited their crime
3.  A food that 94% of the people who died of heart stroke had had daily

If your answer is yes, it might be a good idea to study a bit of statistics.  The food described in 1~3 is all bread.

In this world full of data and numbers, it's better to be able to interprete what exactly you're looking at.

I'm only writing this to review what I've studied lately, but from what I've learned, the important part is comparison.  You can't tell anything from 1~3 unless you compare them with the data of healthy people.  If there is no difference, you can't necessarily say the food has anything to do with the conditions above.

The basic hypothesis is "there is no difference between the data of two (or more) groups （2つの集団のデータに差はない）", and the only situation in which you can say there *is* a difference is when you can prove the hypothesis wrong; or in other words, when the probability of the hypothesis being correct is 5% or less （差がある（危険率5％）） which means there *is* a difference with the probability of 95% or higher.  If the probablity of the hypothesis being correct is 6%, you can't say there is a difference （差があるとは言えない）.  But the 5% line is changed depending on what you're looking at; it's just usually set at a low level because you want to be careful when you say there is a difference.

Like when you develop a cancer drug.  You probably want to know that the drug really does make a (good) difference before you let your patient go through all the painful side-effects.

Usually, we tend to analyze data assuming that there *is* a difference between two different groups -- like in the example above (normal vs. abnormal), when in fact, there can be many common traits between two groups.

Statistics can probably prevent us from being decieved by our own preconcieved ideas or even hopes.

And apparently, data scientists are said to be the "sexiest professionals of the century".  Well, at least in Japan!

some thoughts

I have a couple of things I want to write about but I don't have much time, so I'm going to see if I can mix them all together and still write an entry that makes sense.

Very recently in Japan, a mother gave the middle lobe of her lung to her three year old son.  It was a big news because it's usually the inferior lobe that is used for transplant and it was the first case ever (in the world) that a medical team succeeded in transplanting the middle lobe.  The doctor described that when he held the mother's lung to put into the little boy, it felt as though he was "carrying life（命を運んでいる）".  He said it was a very touching moment (when he thought about it later).

Around the same time, a famous figure skater disclosed to the media that she had given birth in April.  This was a great shock to the public because we all thought she was aiming for the gold medal in Sochi.  Now I see that having a baby and winning in the Oympics are compatible (as long as you don't plan to do it at the exact same time).  She's still up for the Olympics, and I wish her the best.

But at the same time, I could also understand why some people found the news disappointing.  If an athelete wanted to be in best condition she wouldn't choose to give birth less than a year before the Olympics.

Some atheletes say their "goal" in the Olympics is to enjoy.  But I don't think the Japanese public are willing to pay to let atheletes merely enjoy themselves.  Atheletes should realize that the money invested in them could instead be used to save some sick children with dreams to accomplish -- some might want to compete in the Olympics.

When I told my mother the other day that I thought I might be regareded a bit selfish（自分勝手）, she told me that I wasn't selfish but self-assertive（自己主張が強い） and that those were two very different things that were often mixed up in Japan.  Having your own opinion and acting according to what you believe can result in selfish behavior sometimes, but you can still be thoughtful of others while being a "strong" assertive human.

Either way, I don't think it's selfish of anybody to choose what they want.  People have every right to be assertive when it comes to making decisions about themselves -- it's their life.  But maybe, there's something called responsibility too, especially when we're supported by a lot of people.