Tag: technology

#ArtOfRunning: Recovery in Ishinomaki

A repost from my site http://josephta.me My latest Art of Running project saw me back up in Tohoku, the region of Japan so badly hit by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. During last month’s trip to Sendai for TEDxTohoku, we made time to visit Ishinomaki, a fishing town that had both industrial and residential areas […]

Solar Powered Marathon Samurai

This was the scene last night at Tokyo Hackerspace as I was suited up in solar-powered armor. It’s the first time I’ve seen such large flexible solar panels. They may end up as a part of my Tokyo Marathon costume.

Google Goggles: makes me feel I am living in the future

I’ve lost count of the number of times this year I’ve been blown away by some new form of technology. There’s been the iPhone, the iPad, the Love+ app for iPad & iPhone. It happened again tonight: I’m watching a DVD with a friend. It’s set in England. There’s a scene filmed in the grounds […]

Metropolis Podcast Akiba Update – Week 4

In the fourth of my Akiba updates for Metropolis Magazine‘s Podcast, the Metpod I talked about the new augmented reality phone application from AU (via Asiajin.com) I also talked about the mini-eggshell cracker Walter and flexible transistors courtesy of DigInfoNews on Youtube. Subscribe to The Daily Mumble podcast in iTunes here.

Metropolis Podcast Akiba Update – Week 2

In the second of my Akiba updates for Metropolis Magazine‘s Podcast, the Metpod I featured an extract from my interview with Patrick Galbraith (author of the Otaku Encyclopedia) that featured on Japan Podshow episode 6. I also talked about the new iPhone 3G 3.0 software (when I wasn’t planning on upgrading to the 3GS!) Subscribe […]

Metropolis Podcast Akiba Update – Week 1

I remembered tonight that I’d registered The Daily Mumble in iTunes – meaning it easier to subscribe to it as a podcast. It’s an experiment. As you know, I’m doing weekly technology / Akiba sections for the Metropolis Magazine Podcast – the Metpod, but I know that some people are not big fans of podcasts […]

Video: Amazing DIY Rapid Hair Grower

Japan is always ahead of the game when it comes to hair care. With more hair per square kilometre than over 76% of the earth’s surface, Japan takes it’s hair seriously, thus, when hair-loss situations arise, a whole variety of techniques have been developed to combat it. Here’s one I tried last night – as […]

Tokyo CGM Night Volume 4

Last night saw the fourth installment of Tokyo CGM Night, a night hosted by Danny Choo and Andrew Shuttleworth to celebrate Japan’s Consumer Generated Media producers. It’s a chance for Japan’s top bloggers, YouTubers and podcasters to gather and talk about past achievements, and make plans for future collaborations. This was my second CGM, and […]

Conformity, Eric Clapton and tiltshift taxis

I’m sitting in one of the two Starbucks near Kudanshita station. Whilst the one outside exit 2 is a place for colleagues to go and chat, this one is definitely for reading and studying. All around me there are salarymen and women buried in their books, some with highlighters in hand, marking passages and copying […]

Little Runners

I was sitting in Kitanomura park at lunchtime, eating my carrot and daikon salad, whilst watching the children play. I wondered what the view from my bench might look like at other times of year, so I tapped the screen of my iPhone once, and a few seconds later was presented with a whole collection […]

Exchange rates, and Running with technology

What’s going on in the currency markets? It’s absolutely mental! During my Year Abroad, £1 equalled 233yen. Today (45 minutes ago), £1 equals 162yen. I was just doing the sums – my salary here is is worth £7000 more than it would have been worth a year ago (if sent back home). This is great […]

Joseph is online

(A blog I wrote a couple of days ago, and am posting now to celebrate our reconnection to the www this morning. Our new fibre modem has resulted in our actual (vs. advertised) download speed quadrupling to 24mbps, the fastest domestic connection I’ve had yet 🙂 It’s several years now since I decided to actively […]

Yet another iPhone post

(if you’re not interested in it or Apple customer service, look away). Two nights ago my iPhone suddenly had an emergency breakdown. Somehow the OS became corrupted, and the only way to fix it was to connect it to my mac and let iTunes try its best counselling skills. The only problem was, iTunes couldn’t […]

My new job

Starting a full-time job has been a funny experience. The first couple of days left me feeling somewhat stunned. The commute to work is not exactly relaxing. The train gets so full you have those white-gloved station staff pushing you on. Wedged in by salary men, nose pressed up against the glass. I’ve sorted out […]

‘Free’ broadband in Japan

One thing I’ve really enjoyed since arriving back in Japan is being able to watch online videos without having to make numerous cups of tea in order to pass the time they take to buffer. The throttled connections we had at university were probably amongst the slowest in the UK, slower even than my parents’ […]

Using an iPhone in Japan – where it falls down

If you’re not interested in the iPhone, don’t bother read this – just click here instead. I got my iPhone 3G about four hours after arriving in Japan. Being gadget boy, I’d wanted it since launch day, but it would have been a bit daft to get it on a two year contract in the […]

My first few days in Japan – a quick update

So much to write about, so little time. It’s all good. Last week I sent off an email to a training company that a friend of mine works for (it was actually wanting to work for them that promoted me to take the CELTA course). Today I had an interview, and I believe I’ll be […]

Launch of iPhone 3G (and the non-launch of MobileMe)

Wow. A historic day in the gadget world. The iPhone 3G is out (released in New Zealand a few hours back, comes out here in the morning), MobileMe was launched, and then disappeared (and remains unavailable), and the Apps Store went live. The apps store (available in iTunes) has got some really sweet software. This […]

Another step towards openness

Being an Apple fan boy, I am very excited about picking up my iPhone in September. I’ve been finding myself in various situations thinking, “ah, if only I had an iPhone now I could… I know it’s not for everyone, but for someone who rarely goes anywhere without a Macbook, well, an iPhone would mean […]

CILASS for Students website (private launch)

This mumble features a fair bit of bathing in my own glory (so no change there then). I’m delighted to say that the CILASS for Students website is complete. It won’t be officially launched until the next academic year, but I won’t be around then, so I thought I’d quietly launch it to my friends now […]

Why I love Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

I’ve talked about this before, but I want to talk about it again. A few days back I was asked by a friend if I’d give them a bit of training in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the most wonderful photo-processing software ever to have created for people who work with RAW images, or find Photoshop a […]

LTEA Conference 2008: Long Live Inquiry-based Learning!

It’s now the day after the closing of the LTEA (Learning Through Enquiry Alliance) conference 2008, and my head is beginning to clear. I attempted to write about my experience of this event last night, but I was “all conferenced out” as fellow student ambassador Barbara put it – my mind was just a sea […]

Mish-mash

Seems like the Internet doesn’t like wet weather. It;s been gradually dying as the mist has set in tonight. It happens in Wales too. After a heavy rain shower, one has to disconnect the router from the mains and put it in the tumble drier for a while. Skype has been fun. I’d call someone […]

IBL Staff-Student Symposium

Full day of work today, from 8.30am to 4.30pm. I say ‘work’, but it was more like hanging out with friends. CILASS friends. Today was the 2nd CILASS Inquiry Based Learning Staff-Student Symposium. Some people may remember me talking about giving a presentation via Skype from Tokyo at last year’s event – well, this time […]

Up in smoke

Caw blimey gov it’s been one hell of a day. Just got back form the library (2am) where I’ve spent the last 7 hours trying to finish off this website for my employer. I’m always astonished by how long it takes. It was all working fine in Safari and Firefox, but then I made the […]

Magical Jiggery Pokery

The random image thing on the right of this page is supposedly, er, random – so how can one account for things like the above happening? Here, I blogged about my mum’s painting, and hey presto! It randomly appears on the right too! It’s not as if it’s unusual either, I’ve seen matches like that […]

Tech Talk: the power of feeds (and an IC video)

The CILASS tech group had a really interesting meeting today. Started out with planning for Friday’s technology session that we’ll be filming for upload to the website, then went on to discuss the recent developments in web platforms / streaming services etc. I find this kind of thing very exciting as I see enormous potential in it. […]

A great week for photographers

[apologies for lack of links – written from train to Sheffield on which internet is not too reliable (i.e. non-existent.) Google is your friend] It’s been a productive journey so far. I’ve removed the yellow testicle from my patchwork jeans, after it was pointed out to me that it could also be mistaken for a […]

Remote control of camera (and parents)

Beautiful day today. I was up at 6am, and together with my flat-mate Ali headed out to Ponderosa Park. I’ll be off to the IC soon to start writing this dissertation introduction (the one that has been turned upside down by yesterday’s discovery of some new legislature governing NGOs in Japan due to come into […]