It was held at a standard conference centre in Kudanshita. This one is completely on me/Katrina as the ops team! We bought our own equipment last minute and should have instead used the venue's, or bought better equipment.
Thanks for the helpful context! We had intuitions in this direction but its nice to substantiate it with these examples. Do you speak any Japanese / have you considered joining the Japan AI Alignment slack channel? You may have a useful perspective to deconfuse conversations there if/when ontology gaps arise.
Thanks for the question. "Conference" might be the wrong word.
RIKEN, one of the top research institutions in Japan, held a (AFAIK) whole-company event that same weekend. My understanding is that ARAYA did a public sweep of events but didn't learn about this conflict until a few weeks after the date had been set and we sent out invitations. While some RIKEN members attended our conference, others who expressed interest declined ("I would have attended but..."). Asking key participants ahead of the conference about the date probably could have avoided this.
Thanks Gordon! "Balancing the humors" is exactly right.
I think the frames give some broad macro-direction on how to direct one's practice.
They also give micro-direction. Are you feeling increasing levels of stress and numbness? Get some Heaven. Are you feeling caught in the weeds and unclear why you were doing what you were doing? Maybe too much Mechanics, and you've lost touch with both Heaven and Hell. Feeling motivated but confused on how to make a difference? Time for a plan, pragmatic steps, measurement, mechanics.
It's been a nice compass for me.