Books, TV, Movies and Music

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Books, TV, Movies and Music

Books, TV, movies, and music bring a variety of benefits to our lives.

Books, TV, movies, and music are important tools that provide information and knowledge. By being exposed to content of various genres and themes, we can gain new ideas and perspectives, and acquire new skills and expertise. They can also develop a rich imagination by stimulating their imaginations.

They can also provide a visual/audio experience and allow people to empathize emotionally with the story, experiencing joy, sadness, excitement, and more.

The following is a discussion of various book and music topics.

Book

• The Island of Surfing

The Island of Surfing” by Yoshio Kataoka, published in 1980 and now out of print. It contains five short stories about Hawaii and surfing.

• 100 miles to the sea.

Yoshio Kataoka on his surfing novel “The Wave Calls” and his photo essay “100 Miles to the Sea.

• Court Inside California’s Ocean Taught Me

The Japanese translation of this memoir by Daniel Duane is currently out of print. The title of the English version is “Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast“, and it seems to be available in pay-per-view.

• Angel Ball

Kazuaki Teraya is a 41-year-old divorcee who lives in Innoshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, with his two elementary school-aged sons while driving a truck.
One night, Kazuaki Teratani suffers a traffic accident and is given a magical ball that flies as he wishes by a mysterious angel who appears in front of him.
One night, Kazuaki suffers a car accident and a mysterious angel appears in front of him and gives him a “magic ball that flies as he wishes.” Kazuaki goes to take the test to join the Hiroshima Carp in order to fulfill his childhood dream of making the Carp the best in Japan.

• BORN TO RUN

The story begins with the writer, who is 193cm tall and weighs 104kg, jogging a mere three miles (5km) on a snowy farm road, when he suddenly feels a severe pain and shows it to a sports medicine doctor, who diagnoses him with an inflamed cuboid bone and gives him a thick injection in the sole of his foot. I was diagnosed with an inflammation of the cuboid bone (sole) and given a thick injection in the sole of my foot, and told to wear motion-controlled running shoes costing at least $150 and custom-made orthotics ($400).

• Ryotaro Shiba and Shotaro Ikenami and the Historical Novel

Both Ryotaro Shiba and Shotaro Ikenami wrote novels in the genre of historical novels, and both were born in 1923. The two are once again the focus of attention.

• Foundation

Foundation is a science fiction series written by Isaac Asimov in 1951. In Japanese translation, it is titled “Foundation: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire” and is published by Hayakawa Shobo.

• Artificial Intelligence and TV Drama

I once read an article in wired that science fiction writers are increasingly being commissioned to create scenarios to determine the direction to take in corporate management and policy making, and that this is starting to become a viable business. In order to predict what kind of technology will be needed in the future, I think it is important to draw inspiration not only from the accumulation of existing technologies but also from the world of fiction, including actual use scenes.

• Project Hail Mary, MacGyver and the Frontier Spirit

Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir was published in March 2021 and became a science fiction novel that created a great deal of buzz around the world. Project Hail Mary” can be superimposed on this very American “frontier spirit” and “Christian ideology,” which is why it is so widely accepted in the United States.

• Science Fiction Novel “Three Bodies”, the Three Bodies Problem, and Machine Learning Technology

Three Bodies is a full-length science fiction novel by Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin, serialized in the Chinese science fiction magazine “Science Fiction World” from May to December 2006, and published in book form by Chongqing Press in January 2008, as part of the “Earthward Journey” trilogy.

• The simulation hypothesis and classical and non-classical logic

In THE UNIVERSE IN A BOX, the ‘Simulation Hypothesis’ describes the possibility that everything, including our own bodies and minds, is inside a computer. There are several approaches to thinking about whether where we are now is real or simulated. One is the classical logic approach and the other is the non-classical logic approach.

• Emotions, the autonomic nervous system and the ‘regulating’ effect

The topic of how to deal with emotions (vexations) is an important element of Zen and mindfulness, as described in ‘Zen, metacognition and AI’. In recent years, the main approach to emotion theory has been to recognise that emotions cannot be captured by philosophical or religious concepts in the mind alone, but are influenced by physiological factors, as described in ‘On Emotion Recognition, Buddhist Philosophy and AI’. One of the most important physiological factors is the autonomic nervous system. In this article, the autonomic nervous system will be discussed based on ‘The Science of the Autonomic Nervous System: What it means to be “physically fit”’.

• Autumn Reading and Literary History

A Little History of Literature for Young Readers at Yale University, written by British author and literary scholar John Sutherland, is aimed at young readers and literary novices who are beginning to take an interest in literature. The book provides a clear introduction to the history of literature, its major authors and their works. In this issue, I would like to discuss some of the topics picked up from the book.

• History of science for young readers

This book enables young readers to learn the principles of science along with its history. Science includes physics, biology, chemistry and geology in high school alone, and it is difficult for beginning students to understand how science has developed as a whole. The book vividly depicts the dynamic changes in science as once established theories from ancient times to the present day are successively overthrown. The book describes episodes from famous scientists such as Aristotle, Galen, Galileo, Harvey, Bacon, Newton, Einstein and Berners-Lee, and traces the trajectory of development from ancient civilisations to modern chemistry.

Music

• Mathematics, Music and Computers

I believe that mathematics abstracts the laws and patterns of the world and gives them form. The fact that mathematics occupies an important position in machine learning and artificial intelligence is not only due to its function in line with the computer’s ability to calculate, but also because of its ability to abstract laws and patterns. Furthermore, mathematics is a field that requires “free thinking” and “the ability to feel” in order to find patterns and laws by devising various viewpoints and ideas. From this perspective, “music,” which uses various intuitions and ideas to create patterns that move people’s hearts, can be considered to have something in common with mathematics.

• Sound, rhythm, melody and UX

As discussed in ‘Emotions, the autonomic nervous system and the “regulating” effect’, the human autonomic nervous system is heavily influenced by emotions, and the autonomic nervous system is influenced by the external environment. Sound, rhythm and melody have a strong influence on human emotions and are also very important elements in the user experience (UX). The following section outlines an example implementation for generating music using a general generative model that leads to the creation of pleasant sounds.

• History of music and music in the West and East

Music is thought to have originated in ancient times as a means of communication, used to imitate natural sounds and in rituals and festivals. Early musical instruments included percussion instruments (stone and wooden sticks) and flutes (animal bones and wooden objects). In Western music, there was a development of music theory in ancient Greece, as described in ‘On the “Socratic apologetics” and what philosophy aims to achieve’, where the basic concepts of scales and harmony were formed, the philosopher Pythagoras studied the relationship between music and mathematics, and music was considered important as part of education and religious rituals. The relationship between music and mathematics was also studied, for example by the philosopher Pythagoras, who created geometry. Music in the East evolved differently from Western music, with different concepts of tonality and harmony, the use of scales being more important, and in musical form, improvisation and transmission were more common, with no clear musical structure.

• History of the Blues and Automatic Generation with Clojure

Blues is one of the roots of modern popular music and can be one of the genres that play an important role. Here we discuss the history of blues and its auto-generation by Clojure.

• November Steps and Toru Takemitsu and Music Concrete

November Steps” was composed by Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu in 1967. It is one of Toru Takemitsu’s most representative works and is considered one of the most important works in his musical style and approach. Musique concrète” is a genre of electronic music pioneered by French composers Pierre Henry Marteau and Pierre Schaeffer. It is a methodology for creating music through the recording and editing of sound.

• Jazz Overview and Mechanical Performance

Jazz is a popular entertainment music with its roots in blues and ragtime, which originated spontaneously in New Orleans, Louisiana, a port city in the southern United States facing the Caribbean Sea, at the end of the 19th century, mainly by African Americans, as described in “History of Blues and Automatic Generation by Clojure”. The music is a popular form of entertainment with its roots in the blues and ragtime.

• Organ jazz

As described in “Jazz overview and mechanical performance”, jazz started as a spontaneous and informal music played by musicians without academic knowledge or sufficient funds, and the range of instruments gradually increased during its development. Live instruments such as guitars, violins and brass instruments used in brass bands (trumpets, trombones, clarinets, saxophones), often hand-made, entered the scene early on, while symphonic instruments such as flutes and various woodwinds and organs were expensive and therefore appeared delayed.

• This is Bossa Nova

The documentary “Dis is Bossa Nova”, released in the summer of 2007, explores the fascination of bossa nova, which was born in Brazil at the end of the 1950s, and features Carlos Lira and Roberto Menescal, two bossa nova masters who died last year (2023), as narrators, visiting the places associated with bossa nova and presenting various The film is a compilation of episodes from the past and present.