Academic Earth

I've recently been brushing up on my game theory and computer science and I came across a website called Academic Earth which I thought deserved some free publicity.

You can watch, completely free of charge, lectures from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale on a wide range of subjects. In my currently limited experience, the quality is generally high - I've been enjoying Benjamin Polak's course on game theory and Julie Zelenski's course on programming abstractions - although as in "real life", some lecturers are better than others. Hopefully the ratings system will help you steer clear of those - and don't worry, they have humanities courses as well!

(La)TeX to PNG

I've had a bit of a U-turn since my previous blog post on the subject of MathML. As my brother kindly pointed out, the best (in terms of compatibility at least) solution for displaying complicated mathematical equations in a web browser is simply to use images.

The reason I had previously rejected this approach is the added complexity involved in producing these image files. But after weighing up the advantages and finding myself with some free time in which to install Cygwin, this problem has now largely been mitigated.

For the interested, here are the technical details. You're going to need some kind of TeX installation. If you're a Windows user, I'd recommend using Cygwin and installing the various tetex packages. You'll also need ImageMagick to handle the image file conversion.

1. Write your equation in TeX format in the following template:

\documentclass{article}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
% equation goes here: $$  $$
\end{document}


2. Lets assume you've saved your TeX file as eqn.tex. Next compile the TeX to DVI using texi2dvi:
   
   texi2dvi eqn.tex


3. Then convert the DVI file to encapsulated PS format:
   
   dvips -E eqn.dvi


4. Finally convert the PS file to a PNG (or other image format) using Image Magick:
   
   convert -density 200x200 eqn.ps eqn.png

Credit due to Micahel Mazack's website for pointing me in the right direction. As usual, if you run into any difficulties feel free to leave a comment. And here's an example of the kind of results we get:

MathML and Blogger

I'm planning a series of blog posts that are going to be heavy on the mathematics content and I've been researching the best way of displaying complex equations in a web browser.

MathML is my own personal winner but two pitfalls present themselves:

(1) Integration with Blogger

(2) Rendering MathML in Internet Explorer requires a plugin (Firefox can render it natively)

Problem (2) is easily solved by ignoring it. If you're stupid enough to (a) use Internet Explorer and (b) can't work out how to install the plugin then you're not going to understand my equations anyway.

Looks like problem (1) can be "solved" in a number of horrific ways, least painful of which seems to be the method described here. Now, if I've implemented it correctly, and you're using a proper web browser you should see a nicely formatted equation below:

∑ k=1 k=n k 3 = n 2 (n+1) 2 4 = ( ∑ k=1 k=n k ) 2

JLPT Results

I was pleasantly surprised to see my JLPT results had turned up the other day, slightly ahead of the originally forecasted some-time-in-March.

The fact they came in a DO NOT BEND envelop pretty much ruined the surprise as it was clear there was a certificate inside! Here's the all important score report:



312 / 400 is 78% which is a very comfortable pass (60% being the pass mark). As anticipated, the listening section was my weakest.

How did everyone else do?

Where to buy Investors Chronicle?

Update: Success! Camden News - about 2 minutes from my house - stocks Investors Chronicle, along with a bewildering array of other UK and international magazines. Highly recommended if you live in the area.

I've recently developed an interest in spread betting and investing which frankly deserves a blog post all to itself. This particular post, however, is concerned with the magazine Investors Chronicle.

From all of the literature I've read - mainly Malcolm Pryor's good, if not excellent, series of books on spread betting - it seems like Investors Chronicle is a publication worthy of my somewhat limited attention, specifically for the purposes of helping me to identify which shares to buy/bet on. I've popped along to the website of course which looks like a veritable gold mine of financial information to pour over. However, and feel free to call me old fashioned, there is something to be said for reading an actual honest to goodness magazine, and I don't mean one of those new-fangled e-zines either. You know, the feel of the paper as you bestow upon it your soft caress etc. etc.

But mainly I want a hard copy because they haven't got round to installing free WiFi on the Tube yet.

Put aside any criticism of my motivation for wanting to get my hands on a hard copy of Investors Chronicle for one second and let me just roll with it. Since deciding a few days ago that I'd quite like to get a copy, I've come to the conclusion that it's remarkably difficult to track down. The about us section of the website tells me "Investors Chronicle magazine is published every Friday and is available both from the newsstand and via subscription." Sounds easy enough. Problem is, so far I've been to W H Smith in Brent Cross, my university's newsagent and my local newsagent and none of them stock it. W H Smith in Brent Cross is huge - split over two levels for crying out loud! - and my local newsagent has an otherwise excellent selection of magazines so I don't think it's a case of looking in the wrong places.

The more resourceful amongst you may be rushing to point out that I could get a subscription from W H Smith online rather than committing the rather pre-internet revolution mistake of bothering to visit a bricks-and-mortar store or perhaps from the intriguing looking Newsstand website which offers you the chance to specify a subscription of arbitrary length - anything from just one issue to an entire year. Or perhaps even, duh, direct from the Investors Chronicle website itself.

But the problem is I have commitment issues. What if I want to bail after the first date? What if the magazine and I just don't click? I'm just not ready to commit to a whole subscription without first having a sample.

So I've set the scene for my latest mission in life: tracking down a copy of Investors Chronicle. For those of you in similar positions you can take heart that I'm blazing a trail - any stockists I find I'll add to this post. Handy - assuming you happen to live in London.

JLPT: The aftermath

This update is dedicated to Toby for being possibly the only person interested in reading my blog!

I know you're all dying to know how the JLPT went in the end, and why I've been so quiet with the updates. Well, the answer is I'm just not sure.

In the days leading up to the exam I bit the bullet and bought the 2007 and 2008 past papers from the Japan Centre, because anyone who tried to take advantage of my previous post may have noticed that, probably due to the legal grey area of posting these materials on the internet, (a) the audio files were missing or very badly recorded (b) the audio transcripts were missing (c) for some years the papers were missing in their entirety, especially the most recent ones (d) the answers were unofficial and in many cases incorrect.

This gave me 2 forms of final preparation for the exam: taking the past papers as practice exams and, for the listening section, which seemed to be my weak point, practicing transcribing the audio. For most of the practice exams, I remember feeling extremely discouraged and lacking in confidence in my answers during the exam, yet somehow managing to score around 75%. Given that the pass mark for level 4 is 60%, these were all comfortable passes.

I started to get an overall picture of what to expect from the real thing. Section 1, Writing and Vocabulary, can be broken down into four subsections:

1. Identifying the reading of a given Kanji in a given context
2. Given a reading in kana, producing the correct Kanji
3. Identifying the correct word to use in a given context (in a vocabulary rather than grammatical sense)
4. Synonyms - e.g. the question might read "That hotel is famous" and the answer is "Everyone knows that hotel"

Relatively speaking, this section is extremely easy. There are about 100 Kanji to learn for level 4 and it is easily achievable for one to memorize how each one is read and written. Provided you have a good vocabulary which, frankly, is essential for the entire exam, the other 2 parts should also prove no problem. Getting 100% in Section 1 is realistic, was definitely my goal, and should be yours too.

Section 2 is listening. This remained my weakness throughout my study period. On the day before the exam, I felt sufficiently prepared in all other aspects that I dedicated the entire day to improving my listening skills, by working on transcribing the audio. Nevertheless I continued to find it extremely challenging, although I felt my skills had improved somewhat by the end of the day. But here's the thing: sections 1 and 2 are worth 25% of the marks each and section 3 is worth a whopping 50% of the entire paper. Keen mathematicians amongst you will have quickly realized that I could get 0 marks on the listening section and, provided I aced the remaining sections, comfortably pass. Even keener mathematicians will note that, given the exam is multiple choice with 4 choices per question, by chance alone I should be able to pick up 25% of the marks in the listening section, which is equivalent to about 6% of the overall marks. Which means I could get as low as 72% of the marks across the remaining 2 sections and still pass - and I've already told you I intended to get 100% on section 1.

Section 3 is Reading and Grammar and has 6 or so subsections. You'll need to

1. Identify the correct particle to use in a variety of contexts
2. Conjugate verbs
3. Have an excellent grasp of question words and key phrases
4. Have a top notch vocabulary to handle the extensive comprehension questions

The particle usage I found to be the part where I was most lacking in confidence, being unsure of my answers in most instances and having to rely too heavily on intuition. However, it seemed my particular method of revision worked brilliantly insofar as granting me that inuitive grasp of particle usage, at least for the practice exams. The comprehension questions are not that challenging provided your vocabulary is up to scratch, and it's important to bear in mind that these questions carry many more marks - perhaps 4 or 5 times as many marks as one of the particle usage questions. I cannot stress enough how vital a good vocabulary is for passing. It may seem obvious, but if you can't read the questions in any of the sections, or identify the words in the listening, then you're going to struggle.

So how did the real thing go? Like I said - I'm really not sure. It went pretty much exactly the same as all of the practice exams - I lacked confidence in my answers. But I'm comforted by the fact I passed those practice exams. Now all I have to do is wait until March for the results...

JLPT Past Exam Papers - All Levels, with Audio Files!

Big shout out to nihonhacks.com for pointing me in the direction of past exam papers for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

Here you can download past papers for all levels going back until 1991 and here are mp3 files for the listening section.

It's not all good news, however, as I've noticed some of the listening files are virtually incomprehensible, presumably because someone simply snuck a microphone into the exam center.

At least for the other two sections I now have a lot more to practice on, and in my first attempt at 1991 I managed to answer a little over 60% of the non-listening questions correctly - I don't know if this translates into 60% of the marks as I wasn't sure of the marks breakdown - but with a pass mark of 60% things are looking promising. I've pretty much nailed the Kanji recognition and production but my grammar could use a lot of work, particularly verb and adjective conjugations.

Right now the thing I'm terrified of is the listening section. This is worth 25% of the total marks and I'm completely awful at it. My strategy for the coming days is to transcribe 2002's listening section as an exercise and compare it to Peter van der Woude's at the JLPT Study Page. Ideally what I need is transcripts of the listening sections for all of the past papers I've now downloaded but these seem impossible to get hold of.

I do still have the book of 2004 - 2006 exam questions and answers which does include the listening transcripts and, hopefully, high quality listening audio but I'm still aiming to hold these back until Sunday, with a week to go, and treat them as proper exam rehersals.