I’ve been meaning to write this for almost two weeks, since getting back from a brief trip to Matsuyama on Shikoku island (literally, the “fourth country”). Murata-sensei and I were visiting Orito-san of Ehime University and doing some research on CCTV in Japan. While I was there I had three meals that were worth reporting on, all for different reasons. [Read more →]
Last weekend after visiting the National Park for Nature Study in Meguro, we went for lunch at a Chinese restaurant near Shirokanedai called Bamiyan. It’s a chain whose principle distinctive feature is a bottomless cup for drinks via a self-service bar. Unfortunately this means that people tend to go in, order something cheap and occupy their seats for long periods. Rather than decide that the free bar is the problem, they apparently decided that it’s these "semi-free"loaders that are the issue and so they make the place very irritating to stay in for long. They do this by playing "music box" muzak constantly. One or two songs is bearable, but after half an hour it gets on the nerves to much that one has to leave. Certainly for me, this is definitely defeats the object as I won’t go to one of these again unless there’s no other choice.
There seems to have been an earthquake in Tokyo just now. Not a particularly strong one. I’m on the fifth floor of a nine story building and ti wibbled and wobbled around a bit but not worrying or anything. When I was here last year there were two or three earthquakes in Japan which were supposed to be possible to sense in Tokyo (well, I was living in Kawasaki actually, but there too) but I must have slept through the very minor tremors that were felt in this area.
It does raise the question, though, about why people move to earthquake and other risk zones (volcanoes etc). If you grew up somewhere, it’s reasonable to stay, I suppose, but it does make me wonder about my own risk perceptions and cost/benefit analyses that I’m willing to move somewhere prone to earthquakes, and pretty major ones at that. Still, I suppose it’s like many other potentially catastrophic events. You can’t let fear rule your life so you judge the risk as relatively low and get on with things. Otherwise you’d never leave your home (and most accidents happen in the home anyway).
Over the past few years I’ve had a relatively painless time with all the travelling I do. Sure, I’ve had my share of delayed flights (usually from Copenhagen into London) but rarely anything more serious. The worst was dropping my keys on a plane and not realising until getting to the car park and returning to the terminal after that airline had closed up shop for the night.
However, this trip to the US and Japan seems to be making up for the good luck I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of years. [Read more →]
I’m now back in Japan for the summer. I arrived on Air Canada flight 1 (I suppose most airlines have a flight number 1, but I found it odd when I booked the ticket). Unfortunately, not all my luggage arrived with me. The good news is that they’ve found my missing case and it came on the same flight today, and will be delivered tomorrow (Saturday) morning. In further bad news, I broke a tooth on the flight over from Toronto (I came to Japan via a conference in Boston, so have visited Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto on the way to Japan from the UK). I’ll have to claim on the University travel insurance to get it sorted. I’m hoping they don’t have to do an extraction - that wouldn’t be a great way to start a ten week visit. I think there’s maybe enough left to cap it if nothing else. I was four hours delayed getting to Boston initially as well. It’s a good job I really enjoy coming to Japan, otheriwse this trip would be turning out rather depressing. As it is, I’m just happy to be back in Japan. [Read more →]
OK, I admit it. I was ego-surfing Pandora’s Box on various Amazon sites. While looking at the list of other sellers on Amazon.co.uk, I found somewhere that’s selling our book, published in November 2007 and still fully in print, at over £130. The new retail price is less than £30. Do people really buy things listed at such outrageous prices, when one can get it for less than a quarter of the cost direct from Amazon (and over 30 other sellers). This is bizarre.
Amazon.com have an “editorial review” by Karl Jones of Liverpool John Moores University (why this is only on .com and not also/instead on .co.uk I’m not sure) which says: “This book provides a breath of fresh air in the subject… with numerous examples. Further, it provides a nice link between ethical behaviour, professionalism and the law.”
I’ve painfully pushed my way through “Cult of the Amateur”, despite its huge flaws. As mentioned last time, the author constantly follows the “broken window fallacy” in all his economic arguments so far.
A couple of sections cover the issues of accountability in the press and the undermining of advertising. Keen offers up examples of where mainstream media have been caught out, including outright lies, poorly researched stories etc. He offers these up as examples of the higher quality of the infrastructure because of the sanctions then applied. However, the very fact that these failings exist in the mainstream media rather undermine his case, particularly as there’s no way of knowing how many flawed articles aren’t spotted. He also excoriates the self reinforcing groups “talking only to themselves”. These groups are no worse than the existing examples of biased media, for example “Fox News”. One of the differences between mainstream media and the new online media is that new media does not generally make the same claim to lack of bias, or claim to “authority” made by existing media. [Read more →]
While writing my earlier post criticising Keen’s Cult of the Amateur, I looked up Pandora’s Box on Amazon. I found the “Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought” list interesting. It mostly included work by or about Dawkins’ radical atheism. From my point of view, not bad company to be seen in.
Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen looked like an interesting counterpoint to another book awaiting my reading, Wikinomics. I’m only about 10% of the way through Cult of the Amateur, and I’m finding it hard going. Not that it’s badly written in terms of the phrasing; that’s probably the best thing about it. Keen had a Saul on the road to Damscus moment and turned against “Web 2.0″ a few years ago and this is his poorly researched and badly thought out screed against the Web 2.0 ultra partisans. He makes so many mistakes it’s hard to pick them out for scrutiny. Here’s just a couple (I’m using wikipedia links here because it’s one of Keen’s biggest targets and he fails to acknowledge its utility as a starting point):
