Olympic Chips

Posted on August 29th, 2008 in Culinary, Media, Photos by Deas

Since the Olympics are over, I figure I should probably get this post out of the way. I laughed when I saw this blatantly gimmicky play by Calbee just before the Beijing Olympics got started. You can eat your way to Olympic glory! The sparkly bags are a nice touch, too. Gold chips are curry flavored. Silver are cream cheese flavored (gag me). Bronze are flavored like teriyaki. Gold and bronze are obviously the way to go. I would recommend a rethought silver by the next Olympic games, though, Calbee. Seriously. Ugh.

Imabari Wildfires

Posted on August 28th, 2008 in Customary Drivel, Media, Video, 日本語 by Deas

(There is no sound in this clip.)

Note: this video is obviously not mine. I was not able to embed it from the source, and do not know if it will expire. It is a Mainichi News video clip, originally found here. The caption reproduced and then translated below is attached to the clip on the original site.

２４日午後５時１０分ごろ、愛媛県今治市朝倉上の笠松山（標高３５７メートル）で山火事が起きていると、市消防本部に１１９番通報があった。２５日午後４時半現在、山林約９１ヘクタールを焼いて延焼中で鎮火のめどはたっていない。現場は瀬戸内海国立公園に含まれ、一番近い民家まで約１５０メートルに迫っているという。

　四国４県や自衛隊のヘリコプター計約１０機と地元消防署などが日没まで消火に当たった。今治市は２４日午後９時、周辺５０世帯に避難勧告を出し２世帯（２人）が避難、２５日午前１１時には新たに２世帯（３人）に避難勧告を出し３人が避難した。

【撮影・毎日新聞航空部】

In Ehime Prefecture, at roughly 5:10 P.M. JST on August 24th a tip came into the Imabari city fire department via a 119 call reporting that a brush fire was burning on Mt. Kasamatsu (357 meters above sea level), located in the Asakura area. It is now 4:30 P.M. on the 25th, and approximately 91 hectares have burned as the fire continues to spread. It is uncertain when and if it will be extinguished. The affected area is part of the Seto Inland Sea National Park; it is said that the closest private homes are approximately 150 meters from the blaze.

10 helicopters from the four prefectures of Shikoku and the Self Defense Force and the local fire
department battled the fire until sunset. The city of Imabari issued evacuation advisories at 9 P.M. on the 24th to 50 nearby households; 2 complied (2 people total). At 11 A.M. on the 25th, 2 more households (3 people total) were advised to evacuate; 3 people did so.

【Filmed by the Mainichi Newspaper Air Division】

An English language news release is available via the Japan Times Online, for those who are interested. And while I’m tossing out links, here are some Japanese language news blurbs about the fire from Asahi and Mainichi.

Lastly, let me say, no, I was not anywhere near the fire. I had no idea there was a fire until Tuesday. I live on an island off the coast of Imabari. A fire would be hard pressed to make it out to me. And as far as I know there were no injuries (nor burned down property). So, no worries, folks. ;-)

High Tech Origami

Posted on August 27th, 2008 in Customary Drivel, Media, Unsolicited Commentary, Video by Deas

This is the second time I’ve embedded a video from the TED conferences. (In the past I mused about the “Kiki / Buba” psychological phonetics experiment related to synesthesia posited by Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran. I also highly suggested Burt Rutan’s talk.) Last time I only dropped the relevant clip onto the page, but this time the whole thing is related to Japan. Origami is a traditional Japanese art, after all. Therefore I have chosen to embed the native TED video player here. (I have no reason to suspect that they’ll pull their own video, after all.)

I actually discovered Robert Lang through his website when one of my friends in America sent me a bunch of random links they thought were cool. I was knocked out by his work. Then I happened to catch this lecture in my catch-up podcast combing. It really makes sense that folding methodology would lead scientists to borrow from artists who borrowed from mathematicians. I enjoy silly topology experiments (like this and this) sometimes when I’m bored and not learning physics. Yes, my interests are both legitimate and juvenile at the same time. LOVE IT. Anyway, I’m surprised that these worlds hadn’t merged in a more visible way before. I love it when cultural coolness from the old days turns into cutting edge technological prowess.

Interestingly enough, origami in space has been in the headlines at Tofugu this year already, albeit on a much dumber (and smaller - 3.1 inches, to be exact) level. And Japan Probe has done posts on at least 3 modern origami masters; Robert Lang (American) from the above speech, Eric Joisel (French), and Satoshi Kamiya (Japanese).

Back to the Grind

Posted on August 26th, 2008 in Announcements, Customary Drivel, JBMatsuri, Trips by Deas

Hey all - I’m back from my insane almost month-long period of excursion after excursion. (Seriously…it’s the 26th and this is my first post this month…wacky…) I’m settling back in, getting over a wicked chest cold, catching up on my RSS subscriptions (and the Olympics and U.S. [Biden?] and World [Russia - Georgia] politics). MAN am I out of the loop. While I’ve been gone, some really cool stuff has been going on. The biggest deal would be the reintroduction of the Japan Blog Matsuri, started by Ken Y-N at What Japan Thinks. This month’s JBM was held by Shane over at the Tokyo Traveler, and was focused around the theme “Impressions of Tokyo“. Go check it out and start to think about whether or not you’d like to contribute to next month’s matsuri, which will be hosted by Tae Kim. I know I’m in. I just gotta find something coherent to write about. :-)

Also - I discovered this really cool tool cleverly called Keiken [Japanese] via Bryan at A Walk in Hachioji. (Curiously, the specific post I found it in is no longer on his page…but it existed in the RSS feed earlier…hmmm.) Here’s a map of my experience of Japan so far. It includes shenanigans from my time studying abroad all the way to present day. And while I’m sad that I’ve still not been to Okinawa, I think it’s sadder still that I’ve not been to Tokushima… Ha ha ha. I’m not sure if the Javascript is actually working, so I’ll try to replace it with a self-hosted image later. In the meantime, the link does work. ;-) How many points do you have? I’m currently at 107! Wahoo!