Miscellaneous articles

Jiu Jitsu or Jujutsu — Romanisation of Japanese

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Fri, 2013-11-15 20:00 - At Adam Tilley's black-belt grading on 2013-11-15 at Judgemeadow Community College in Leicester.Tony Hughes (blue) and Simon Ford-Powell
8 years ago ago at Evington, Leicester, England, United Kingdom by Masa Sakano. cs

A friend of mine, who is a very experienced martialartist in a few disciplines, including Jiu Jitsu (Jujutsu, Jujitsu, Ju Jutsu), asked me what is the appropriate spelling of Jiu Jitsu in alphabet, referring to the following post by some one, who seems to be in favour of "Jujutsu"

I would say the author's claim is factually corrrect mostly, though is incorrect at one point and contains points I don't know about. Here I am presenting my view.

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AlphaGo—Marvels of Artificial Intelligence for go

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A stage during the fifth match of Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo

Very recently a shocking news hit the headline: one of the best go players in the world lost by 1-4 against a go-playing software. Here is the related history and what I thought of about it.

History of artificial intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been in people's imagination for ages. One of the most famous and first AIs in novels is HAL 9000 in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series, starting from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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First taste of Dolomites in 2015 summer

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Fri, 2015-09-04 15:23 - Patrick pointing.Torre Quarta Alta (with climbers at the top) and Torre Quarta Bassa (slanting)

Dolomites — allegedly one of the best trad-climbing venues in Europe. A meet by Bowline Climbing Club was held there in the end of this summer. I had a chance to participate it for a few days, then further climbed on after the meet, with another visiting friend of mine.

It was most heart-warming to be reunited with my good old friends of the BCC. And the overall experience was priceless! The best was…

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Two-balloon experiment explained

Submitted by masa on

There are two balloons. You inflate them to different sizes, bigger and smaller. Now, what will happen if you connect the mouths of those two balloons? Guess!

Schematic view of the two-balloon experiment quiz.

This is a relatively famous problem called ``Two-balloon experiment''. The result is actually a little counter-intuitive.

In this article I explain what happens and why, first based on the law of physics in Section 2, and then present more intuitive interpretation without using equations in Section 3.

I have found a few related documents about this problem over the Internet in English (and Japanese), but none of them was satisfactory to me. So, here you go. Enjoy!

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Memoir of the path to Sugar Cane Country

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Tue, 2015-06-23 13:46 - E4 6a, belayed by Mike.Ry on uber-classic Sugar Cane Country
6 years ago ago at , Vatersay, Scotland, United Kingdom by Masa Sakano. cs

There is a weird relationship between climbers and grades: love, hate, obsession, indifference, or whatever. Having finally achieved the next higher grade after years of continuous failures, I am here looking back at what pushing the grade has meant to me. …

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Angels and Demons first ascent

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Sat, 2015-03-21 10:00 - OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Phil approaching to An Garbh Coire Refuge
7 years ago ago at , Scotland, United Kingdom by Masa Sakano. cs

Entering Garbh Choire Mór.

Report of our first ascent of Angels and Demons (IV, 4), An Garbh Choire, Braeriach.

Southern Cairngorms — one of the most remote places in the Scottish wilderness. I remember when I first had a look at a map of the area years ago, I was impressed how far some places were. An attraction of outdoor activities is to go somewhere other people would not, or even could not, go or reach. It is I think a major element in mountaineering, and it certainly is […]

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Masa's perspective of Banana Wall (XII/12)

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Wed, 2015-02-25 11:57 - Shaking an arm on stupidly steep terrainShaking an arm on stupidly steep terrain
7 years ago ago at , Glenmore Lodge, Scotland, United Kingdom by Masa Sakano. cs

Greg Boswell made the first ascent of his yet hardest Scottish winter route, Banana Wall, Coire an Lochain, Cairngorms on 25th February 2015, as reported in his own blog post. It can well be the hardest Scottish winter route (grade XII, 12) or even the world, for the trad-protected mixed route. Here is my perspective as the belayer, climbing partner and witness of his feat.

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Type-3 fun, or 5 per cent terror

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Tue, 2014-08-12 11:49 - The weather cleared up and it has become a nice sunny day.

Kyle saw an orange light tumbling down the steep slope on the glacier and passing him.
He realised, I have got to do something, right now!
Throwing himself at the slope to thrust the pick of iceaxe into snow as deeply as possible.
Unfortunately, that was not enough.
The rope between him and falling Masa became taught.
He was dragged down and he too started to fall…

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New routing at The Brand - Part 1

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Sat, 2012-10-06 15:22 - In The Brand, Leicestershire, E4 6a. Belayed and shot by Graeme. ©Graeme BaxterMasa before the upper crux of Zakuro
9 years ago ago at , Swithland, England, United Kingdom by Masa Sakano. ©

[© Graeme Baxter]

"What's the next move?!" I asked myself.
I have practiced the move so many times, yet for some reason in this final leading attempt, I can't recall…

The last and only meaningful gear was 4 metres below — as many as 4 pieces — loads in terms of quantity, but the quality is questionable: a small pecker, micro-cam in a shallow seam, micro-nut placed side-way, and slider-nut placed vertically…

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