Thursday, December 31, 2015

"Time"

(2015/12/31)  Proceeding ahead in life, it becomes increasingly apparent that a lack of enough time for planned activities/projects/etc. is HUGE.  You get ideas for doing something; you put it on a back burner, and sometimes you even get to it and complete it, but back burner projects grow in number and complexity.
   Just the way it is I suppose, but sitting here in Tokyo on December 31st, 2015, the time thing hits me more strongly than it ever has before.  The combination of a backlog of things to do and a growing realization that no one is immortal....  Nothing for it but to push ahead I guess, still... the quest to tie most of it together continues.
   In an attempt to make myself feel better, I've thought back on things that I wanted to do (in my life) and did - particularly the things that were a risk at the time, pursuing photography, jumping the Pacific Ocean with only enough money for one week, pushing ahead with the early nineties video project in what was a financially reckless way (more concerned with getting needed image & sound recording equipment than with paying the rent), etc.
   "Just more of the same!" I'm tempted to say, but the difference now is a distinct feeling/realization that time, my time, time... time... is running out.  So much to do, so little time to do it in.....

Happy New Year!

Lyle H Saxon
Tokyo

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

"5:30 a.m. - 6:30 a.m. Tokyo Rush"

(2015/12/08) - I look around at the others in this early morning coffee shop.  While ages seem to range from people in their twenties up to late fifties (possibly a person here or there past the sixty barrier), the majority seem to be in their late forties and into the full spectrum of fifties.  Speculation mainly (not purely - there is evidence), but just about everyone is here - before 7:00 a.m. - because they came into town early to escape the purgatory of the peak crush-rush commute via the steel rails.

It was different when flex-time was fairly common, but when the banksters trashed the world economy in 2007-08, many (most?) large companies (and small?) canceled flex-time and reverted to requiring that employees be at their desks by 9:00 a.m.  And so people who had gotten used to a less intense morning commute had only one method of escape; taking earlier trains.  But there are so many people doing this, that even the 5:30-6:30 trains are now quite crowded.  When I ride the Yamanote Line around 6:30 a.m., I always kind of shake my head at the sight of it being packed not far below the infamous "manin" (満員) level of density.  I look around the interior of the packed train, and then down at my watch, "Yup, there it is... it really is 6:30 a.m...", and back at the people around me, "... and all these people!".

And then I see a portion of them killing time in a train station coffee shop - waiting for their buildings to open so they can get to their desks.  It seems very clear why they're here - certainly it's why I'm here....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
http://lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
http://tokyoht.blogspot.jp/

Discussing English in Japanese....

(2015/12/01) - I just overheard a conversation between an English teacher and one of his students.  The student had some questions about an assignment and the teacher was helping him.  Okay - sounds like a scene of pure normality... except the five minute discussion was 99% in Japanese (discussing grammatical details).

This is a key problem with learning a radically different language (and English and Japanese are pretty radically different).  A low level student expects things to be explained in their native language, which is understandable enough, but in this case, the student - as a second year high school student - has been studying English for at least four and a half years now.  If you don't *use* a language, then you never remember it, and discussing a foreign language in your own language certainly isn't using the foreign language.

I hasten to add here that learning a radically different foreign language is a very difficult thing to do.  As for teaching it; ideally it should be one-on-one (one teacher and one student), but the logistics of mass education dictate that one teacher teach a large group of students, so how is that best done?  There are no easy answers, but any student of a foreign language should keep in mind that *use* is what gets you to remember a language.

Not especially useful advice for a student studying for exams I suppose, but there it is nonetheless....

LHS

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout

2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout
2015年12月の吉祥寺散策散歩 Kichijoji Walkabout

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
http://lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
http://tokyoht.blogspot.jp/

Wednesday, December 02, 2015

Open Letter to the BBC - Podcasts, Compression Rates, Soft Power...

Update (2016/12/23)

Dear BCC - I just discovered today when I downloaded a Global News podcast that (suddenly) there's a choice of quality - between 64k and 128k.  Bravo!!!  This is great!  In an age of everything (seemingly) getting worse, nice to see something get better!

Thank you!

 - LHS

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Dear BBC,                                         (2015/12/02)

I love BBC podcasts and deeply appreciate the service - particularly news and documentary podcasts.

I have one concern however - the switch to a very low bitrate (low sampling rate) makes them uncomfortable to listen to.

Please restore the previous bitrate!  The current very poor sound quality is disturbing to listen to, and since I want to avoid the headaches the current poor sound quality generates, I have largely stopped listening.

Austerity rules?  It shouldn't.  Please understand that "soft power" (of which the BBC is a major component) is not something that even austerity fetishists really want to destroy.

Best regards,

Lyle H Saxon
Tokyo, Japan


PS - I attempted to e-mail this to you via your invitation to comment to globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk, but it bounced with this error message:

Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:
joanna.mills@bbc.co.uk
The recipient's mailbox is full and can't accept messages now. Please try resending this message later, or contact the recipient directly.

So I - in accordance with the: "... or contact the recipient directly" part of the message, tried sending it to: joanna.mills@bbc.co.uk

- which also bounced, with a long error message, full of this type of thing:

"...mailbox full..., ...Quota Exceeded..., ...Failed to process message due to a permanent exception with message Cannot open mailbox..."

Seeing no way of contacting you via e-mail, I have resorted to this open letter.

と言う事で、下らない行動をやめて、明るい将来へ進みましょう!

以上

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Walking Around in Evening/Nighttime Hachioji Station Area (八王子駅辺り)

I did an evening walkabout in Hachioji last week and just posted a blog entry of about 50 of the pictures with text talking about Hachioji and also my C-2020Z camera.
I put the pictures on a blog with a black background, here:
夜の八王子駅辺り散策散歩(写真)東町と小門町 - 2015年 Hachioji Night Walkabout (Photographs) North Side
http://tokyoht.blogspot.jp/2015/11/2015-hachioji-night-walkabout.html
These are pictures from the same evening, but ones not in the other blog post.  As I write in the main post - it was an interesting/fun experience walking around in Hachioji.
八王子 / Hachioji
八王子 / Hachioji
八王子 / Hachioji
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://youtube.com/lylehsaxon
http://lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
http://lookback1997.blogspot.jp/
http://tokyoht.blogspot.jp/

Sunday, November 01, 2015

2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition

Several scenes from my 2010 video exhibition Tokyo-1990 / 20年前の東京 - of the exhibition itself, taken when I wasn't busy (for obvious reasons) - and also some scenes of Tokyo while I was in transit to and from Ginza.
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition 
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
 2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition
2010年展示会最中 / 2010 Video Exhibition

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon