1,000 knives of thought - answers

1. Use an oscilloscope.
2. Use a digital recording device and look at the wave forms.
3. Look at loudspeakers' vibrations.
4. Read an onomatopoeia.
5. Read musical scores.
6. Look at musical instruments being played.
7. Look at toys that react against sounds.
8. Look at the surface of a body of water (for very low-pitched sounds only).
9. Look at how things tremble in your house (for the sounds of passing airplanes).
10. Look at a diagram to show how sounds are processed in our brains.

Kenji Saito

One hypothesis about the reason why dinosaurs got extinct is that they succeeded so well in the environment with gymnosperms that they suddenly had little to eat when angiosperms appeared and began to rule the world.

Kenji Saito

I'll tell you why because I've never killed a person, or at least I think I haven't. I've never killed a person because I'm afraid of the consequences.

Kenji Saito

From my limited experience in visiting Taipei (five days in 1994), I have an impression that their role models are USA and Japan. Everywhere in Taipei, I could see signs for American and Japanese language schools, and people greeted customers in Japanese in so-called Japanese style restaurants (which weren't exactly Japanese). Clerks at Tower Records Taipei could speak English perhaps much better than their equivalents in Shibuya. Therefore it shouldn't be surprising if their election campaign style has been influenced by those of USA and Japan. It's loud, it's a show, and as most mimics are, it's an exaggerated version of both.

Kenji Saito

The first fish who set their fins on the lands. The first reptile who jumped into the air. The first everyone.

Kenji Saito

It's not that I don't like it, but my mother has a short temper, which I inherited.

Kenji Saito

Because maybe it's like a fever, and my analytical thinking may not be working properly then.

Kenji Saito

I discovered recently that I had enough money to upgrade the studio equipment for my band. But I didn't plan ahead very well, and I thought I bought things which might have turned useless. But somehow it turned out OK, thanks to my subconsciousness. After all, I've always had a vision. In fact, I now own a copy of Vision DSP 4.1, a new sequencer software.

Kenji Saito

It happened last Sunday. I was composing a song. I had a preliminary melody which I had no intention to use as a vocal line. I wanted the vocalist I invited to come up with her own line, but she had a difficulty. I wrote words but it didn't help. After a while, I realised that the words I wrote were perfect match with the preliminary melody. The recording session ended successfully.

Kenji Saito

That software is more cost effective than hard-wiring which is why the cerebrum has become this big.

Kenji Saito

It was about a massage I decided to receive. It was going to be given by a naked woman, and I was explained that by all means it was legal, and I should not feel guilty about receiving the service. I was even told that it was manly to receive it. I think it was situated in a hotel, where a lot of celebrities were staying.

Kenji Saito

True unless it is played back through a D/A conversion. Furthermore, if it can be called "play back" is an interesting question, as digital to analogue conversion is a sort of creative process.

Kenji Saito

A mother can act a father's role (as my mother does). In another example, if a woman becomes pregnant by replacing the core of the conceived egg with that of one of the woman's own cells, that woman is a mother, and as the daughter shares 100% of her genes with the mother, the mother is also a father.

Kenji Saito

False. Information processing originated in genetic encoding/decoding.

Kenji Saito

Yes, but only partially. In a holistic view, each individual in a society is not unrelated with the behaviours of the society as a whole.

Kenji Saito

There are at least two ways to interpret this question:

1. Is somebody's pain caused by my pleasure?
   I don't think I should care, unless that somebody's pain is my own pain, in such a case it's not my pleasure to begin with.
2. Do I feel pleasure through somebody's pain?
   Not at all.

Kenji Saito

Yes. I think I'm a good problem solver, but at the same time I don't seem to persuade people very well. As a good problem solver, I tend to listen to people's opinions carefully, and usually see some good points in them. I admit that they've made some good points. On the other hand, people tend not to listen to me, and they often fail to understand my points. In a surficial level, it looks as if I lost my arguments. But very often it is a result of imbalance between our abilities to understand.

I know that some people would say that the real problem may lie in my lack of ability to present ideas well. That may be true. But did you see what has just happened?

Kenji Saito

True because logic is embedded in our languages.

Kenji Saito

A computer scientist can save the world because computer science is a study of problem solving, and its students must know what it is to solve problems. It of course starts with finding a problem, which often is the hardest step.

Kenji Saito

I agree that a cooperation is a form of life, however it's more like a nest of ants than a human being. Its immune system, therefore, is different from that of a human being but closer to that of a nest of ants if there is one. Perhaps the immune system for the ants is its army. A cooperation doesn't usually have an army, because their war is economical. But a cooperation is protected by laws. I guess if its lawyer is infected by say, some strange religion, then it's equivalent of AIDS to the cooperation.

Kenji Saito

You will no longer be able to fire them. Also, entries to other countries will not be easy.

Kenji Saito

It would be more difficult to recover when you next fail. Also, you will become conspicuous, which may attract unnecessary problems.

Kenji Saito

Because some people are immature.

Kenji Saito

Great old man.

Kenji Saito

The Santa Claus Day.

Kenji Saito

Being less inclined to move to more effective ideas.

Kenji Saito

True because often life is at stake.

Kenji Saito

True because colour is caused by a reflection of light, and the perceived colour of a material depend on the lighting situations.

Kenji Saito

False because it is my weakness that would lead me to potentially dangerous situations.

Kenji Saito

They are both responsible for people's lives sometimes.

Kenji Saito

By increasing immunity.

Kenji Saito

Love is a mental inertia.

mailto: ks91@cornell.edu