PB notes: Technology

ad nauseum, yes, we know, Japan is a technophilic kind of place. I just learned you can watch TV on your cell phone here, for example. I also recently saw an advertisement for pre-Fab homes made by Toyota that are earthquake proof.

Yes, the same technology that makes your mom’s Camry such a smooth ride has found its way into making houses (or rather “steel frame unit systems”) that even Outkast’s ‘shaking like a salt shaker,’ or ‘like a Polaroid picture’ <<-much less shaking it like a moderate-level earthquake->> would not do much damage to.
That is undeniably cool.


(the almost magic steel-frame unit system joint in question)

Toyota is perhaps the reason why the greater Nagoya area (Okazaki included) has thrived. It is a bit of a company town. Before they were in the car (or home), business, Toyota led the way in power loom technology. Spinning wheels, to steering wheels, to houses on wheels, to…? Oh the future, it rolls out in front of us like a red carpet, but doesn’t it**

Being a bit of a Luddite at heart, the idea that robots or certain other devices could replace hands or other human craft (at least for jobs besides digging coal or defusing bombs) is something at which I cringe a bit. Mitsubishi (cars, banks, homes, salt) has just come out with the ultra-uber-super-crazy-duper Fine Point Pen. It can even write R-I-C-E on a grain of rice.


(in case you forgot what this white speck was, you can now just as easily label it)

Maybe somewhat disheartening, that. I mean, I love a good pen, but that is what you could call putting a long tradition of people (those who will write your name of a grain of rice with a cat's eyelash for 5 dollars) out of a livelihood. But then, there is really no reason to be so pessimistic. “RICE”?! is that all you can bring, Mr.-I’m-a-big global-monster-conglomerate? Dude, check yourself before you wreck yourself, because supposedly a guy in Turkey can write over 200 letters on one grain! hah!

But innovation comes from all sides. It’s a matter of finding new solutions to old problems. Do you know, for example, that if your electric hotplate is on the fritz, you can quite satisfactorily cook the local favorite - kishimen noodles - in a small Tiger automatic rice cooker? I found this out just last night. Every problem has at least two solutions, and certainly in the case of noodles, as many as you got boiling in the pot.



** What is Toyota’s vision of the future? Well, that is supposed to be one of the points of the World Expo I think I'll likely pass on going to. Thomas went last Friday and waited 3 hours to get into the Toyota Pavilion only to be able to stay 20 minutes.

Sure, techonology could have saved him time: he could have reserved a pavilion pass on the Internet and not of had to wait in line. But much as it is with money, to save time you need to have some in the first place – Internet reservations necessitated booking one month in advance. that’s thinking ahead.


("Wakamaru" - Mitsubishi Corp's Expo robot (every pavilion needs at least one!))


At the Toyota Pavilion were many things (I hear), including an: Interactive Fun Zone

What fun does the future hold? Oh man, apparently one that would have made Julian Huxley and Asimov freak-out in equal measure. Couldn’t the Division Head for Corporate Communications at least have gotten some Lit. or English majors to write some decent copy, instead of taking the job on himself? egad.

“The Dream, Joy and Inspiration of Mobility in the 21st Century”

The main show will feature uplifting performances involving the i-unit, robots and human performers. A fantastic spectacle will unfold on the stage by means of a giant 360-degree screen and stage props. Through the appearance onstage of elements of life, nature and future society, visitors will be introduced to the wonder of moving about freely and living, and also to a new kind of relationship between people and cars.

6.3 billion (+2)

Happy to say that there is a new bike in my life. well, actually kind of an old bike, but new to me. for the very fair price of 2000 yen I secured myself longish term rental from the nice lady at Nonoyama bike shop. it is a Bridgestone brand, tricked out with basket, and model name: “Colmo Roadman.” Getting on the springy seat, you can feel the power of the eight-speed gears that make the name so right on for this remarkable example of Road Vehicle. it’s got a mustard yellow bell on the right handlebar which is great, ‘cause the brakes don’t work as well as, well, they could.



Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t have much information on it, aside from one brief exchange between “weedman” and “luker” on bikeforum.com:

luker
never see one like it - looks like a pretty decent randonneur. Are the wheels 650b?Supercolmo? Man, the Japanese came up with some startling attempts at Euro-sounding trade names. I have an Araya with a "Compy" saddle...

...
Jung-Shih, a Taiwanese student also here for some Japanese study, rented a bike from the same shop. Eager, we decided to check out Okazaki Castle and the park of its environs on our new rides. it was a beautiful Saturday for such a thing.

Utmost in civility, livability, and right-on-ness: community gardens spread like squash tendrils across the banks of the river on one side,



while some decent playgrounds, 30 years on now, hold firm on the other.



There is nothing "spectacular "about this town, which may in fact be its greatest asset. 30 minutes off the World Expo is happening, making the neighboring city a Big Deal. big deal indeed. look instead to the Small Deal that packs a punch.


(pretty industrial, though on a small scale. Japanese classes are in a building that itself is a reclaimed metal smelting warehouse).

……..

Being somewhere else all together means doing something else all together, even like watching the occasional TV. Last night on NHK there was a show on the world birth rate. Apparently geared towards to the 10-13 year old crowd, it discussed what national birth rates were, how they were calculated, and how Japan at 1.29 children per woman is on the low end of global things in the population growth game. and it was a game, actually and in part, that the two kids helping MC the show guessed on:


(can you even imagine such a program even being conceived in the states? you completely can’t. This is not the kind of stuff that helps kids go koo koo of Coco-Puffs; it is a advertiser’s nightmare)

huh.
it appears to be a 'timely' show, given the the recent government reports. Of course, the relationship between the government's promotion fo births, the pensioner population, and womens' reproductive rights in Japan is not a nice story at all (while the Pill is finally legal, it's not likely playing much of a role in the particular case of 1.29).

Overshooting by about 0.7, maybe the kids' guesses where thrown off by other demographic considerations news-worthy of late?

Yes, the current world population is estimated to be 6.3 billion people. but what about the big rumour about the two Japanese soldiers holed up on a mountainside in the Phillipines, the ones that the Japanese government is now frantically working to officially contact and confirm? the last census missed them, I bet. Two soldiers that, it should be added, have supposedly been holding out since the conclusion of world war II 60 years ago.

The two in question seem less keen on media coverage spotlight. but then if you could avoid the war, are those who sent you to it (80% of there particular army division perished), wouldn’t you continue to wait it out? Real myth turned urban myth (?) turned absurd, it is all still pretty unclear...



the last Japanese soldier they found like this (i.e. in the Phillipine jungle) in 1974, one Lt. Onoda, didn’t know the war had ended. Onoda refused to surrender till his former commanding officer was flown to him in the jungle to tell him the war was over, like for real. I guess being that kind stickler for confirmation must have made him quite the intelligence officer in his day.

<><>>>>

Of course, When I heard the 1.29 figure for Japan’s birth rate, I also couldn’t believe it. Just looking around the South City Park here in Okazaki this past Sunday, one gets the impression that the Kids are winning. they were in droves, wall to wall and tree to stream, it was completely out of hand. Fun was being had by the short-set like it was disappearing with the sunset (and indeed, the kiddie train that weaves through the greener parts of the park was scheduled to steam-down just around then.)

Cute Animals, or rather representations of there of, are everywhere. So it shouldn’t come to any real surprise that the WC next to the panda-shaped train has a like-minded mural:



However I want to ask: just what the hell is going on here?

I could stare at this mural for a couple days and I think be not a hair closer to cracking the egg on the riddle of this one. Suggestions? The car is upset, this much is clear. because the mouse just flew out the back window with steering wheel in hand, perhaps? the bear is also freaked out, maybe by the mouse, and because the car is completely NOT paying attention to the fact that they are about to hit a pig. the pig who is oblivious (and I suspect constitutionally non-plussed) and waving to me. making me realize -but my god, what is my part in this scenario?

I shout out to the pig before remembering that Never will always be soon enough in a case like this. these wacky animals, they don’t need to know any better. Frozen in this nut-o pose, the accident will never completely happen. but then I guess it is also always happening? to envy or despair the life of imaginary creatures, it’s hard to know. and where is the WC? it's all almost enough to make you forget when nature is calling.

Nature is calling. but where is it? apparently hanging out with Daily Living:



this store says simply “nature and daily living” in Japanese on the left; and on the right the name of the store in English: Hell-Bent. peeking in you find all sorts of crazy and beautiful wood furniture that is unaffordable, but uniquely designed and crafted. If not a chair though, at least I can buy the sentiment. life and nature are hell bent if nothing else, damn straight they are. and one can only try to be as hell bent about it as possible.

…
Even after the extensive bike excursion of the day before with Jung-shih and “Roadman”, and this day added, the kind of geographic sense of things that gives me the wherewithal to keep my right straight from my left (or was is it left from right...? ) still eluded. Following that adage which popped into my head 2 seconds before - “When in doubt, look higher about” - I decided to end the day by taking a spin on the local(creaky, old) Ferris wheel to get another perspective on things.



Building upon building to the horizons. and 6.3 billion and counting.



I think I can even make out the two alleged holdouts, some thousands of miles south on that Phillipine mountainside, in their late 80’s, and content enough. But really, after 60 years, you (or even the thought of you), should remain a secret safe. What does the world want with the two of you anyway? I suspect nothing that hasn’t already kept them away all this time for half a century and more. my intuition: stay on the panda-train. or the Phillipine jungle (or don’t). Either way, it's all pretty Hell-Bent, baby.
_Hell_ _Bent_

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ps.
Jo-san: wish you were here, like two years past.
No worries, though, I'm eating plenty of 'ten-don' in yer honor.