Sometimes living away from one’s original country, one misses important news. Chris Knox certainly played a big part of my life when I was growing up back in Christchurch. More than anything I love the way he has his own unique style. Playing his casio keyboard on top of an ironing board. Some very wonderful evenings. I remember him at one of the events at Canterbury University thanking the maths club for coming along (well they all had numbers on the back of their jerseys!).

Here is Not Given Lightly. Have always had a soft spot for that song. Reminds of someone who once had dreads.

Get well soon!

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This rocks. Truly wicked!

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Found this video of boarding in New Zealand. It will blow your mind!

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Anyway, I saw this video and thought I just had to share it, it is soooo amazingly well done.

Hope you enjoy!

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Quite surprisingly, Japan has a lot of space per person. I guess all the mountainous regions and forest Japan has preserved add up to a bit more room than is imaginable when one is living in a city such as Tokyo.

You can read about how this was put together here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/30/charts-3.html

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That bath is about twice the size of ours.

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Wow

The last 2 minutes are special.

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This evening, I was trying to leave a comment on another blog, and it was a blogger blog. It seems the options have changed for comments, so I was offered either to use a blogger ID or an Open ID. I prefer to use my own website (ie. www.blizzardboy.net) as my ID, rather than going through some other service, but it would appear that that option has disappeared.

So I got curious - I did start a blogger blog back in 2006 so I wanted to see what happened to that. Actually it is still there at http://psy-ke.blogspot.com/. I wanted to see what would happen if I chose the blogger option. And lo and behold the blog was still there.

But when I went to log in, every thing was in Japanese! I guess no matter where you are from it will display the navigation and everything in the language of the region you are in.

Despite Japan having a foreign population of over a million people, blogger (and other google sites including analytics, adsense, adwords and youtube) as well as a large number of other sites choose to send web pages in the language of the country which your IP address indicates, rather than the language your browser indicates.

This means we get web pages in Japanese when we want them in English. Now, I can work in Japanese, but I prefer not to. From a webmasters perspective this is easy enough to change. But for the end user can be a real nuisance.

Anyway after a little googling I found the solution here and I have copied the pertinent parts for your (and my!) reference here:

From: Mishka OP

You need to make sure you have the language set in all three locations for it to stick and if you delete cookies it will revert and you’ll have to do the settings again.

Here are the instructions that you can use even if you can’t read the language being displayed.

Okay, a few things. First, you need to go into your browser settings and make sure that English is chosen as your preferred language.

Okay, if you are logged into blogger and on your blog’s main page, you can click on the little blogger icon on the left top corner and it will take you to your dashboard. When you are on your dashboard, you should see your blog names below and your profile picture and name to the right. The third bullet down from the picture is the Change Language link. Click on that and select English and save (English should be the top one, and Save is the big orange button).

After you save, it should take you right back to your dashboard. Underneath the title to your blog, there should be a little gear icon on the right side. The second link is the one for the blogs settings, click on that. Formatting is the third link over from the left underneath the settings tab (which should be where you are if you came from the dashboard). The language settings is the 6th down from the top of the page. The save button is bright orange at the bottom of the page.

It is more of a google thing than it is a blogger thing (they think they are helping you out by adjusting the language based on IP address but it is supposed to default to your browser’s language).

This is quite useful advice even if you are just traveling to Japan (or to any other country that uses a different language).

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Any country is a “diverse beast” and Japan is no exception. Surfing the web this morning I came across the following articles which cover a couple of the multitudinous faces of Japan - technology, tradition and ecology.

So lets start with cute technology. Geekyblog has a post featuring a very cute robot: Postkun - Limited Edition Japanese Robot.

They have this to say about the robot:

This funky looking robot is the creation of Tokyo based company Kyosho, he is called Postkun, which means ‘Little Postman’ in Japan.

Postkun will be available in a limited edition of just 10 robots, and only available in Japan for about $3,500.

That price seems a bit steep, so I don’t think I will be getting one unless my boss starts paying me more - a lot more!

You can read more about Postkun here: Postkun - Limited Edition Japanese Robot.

Treehugger - a website I quite enjoy reading, has an interesting piece on Paco House. A long way from Le Corbusier, Paco House is an alternative to dome housing, offering the possibility of a second house that is just gorgeous.

Doesn’t that just look idyllic? Especially from the midst of winter in Tokyo.

They add:

Let’s say you needed a really small house, perhaps a Dome Home, to put on a secluded place on a beach, somewhere far off and away. Schemata Architecture Office Ltd. is a group of designers showing a concept small second house that you could build yourself, or perhaps help to develop. I like the freedom of this. You could put it anywhere. If no-one complains, you are ok to go. Are there laws against second house freedom?

Indeed, who would complain! You can read more about the Paco House, and see some more pictures here: Small House Design “Paco” From Japan.

And finally the traditional - Men at Work: Artisans of Old Japan. No not an Australian 80’s band trying to make music using the remains of last nights dinner, but a well researched article from Slate Magazine. There are three parts up at the moment, and it looks like more are on the way.

The writer June Thomas kicks off:

Every language attracts a special kind of student. Spanish speakers are lazy and charming. Those who have mastered French are sometimes chic and always sybaritic. Hebrew attracts the committed; Turkish, the committed and complicated. Adventurers are drawn to Arabic, and Mandarin is for brainiacs who love a challenge—so much so that they often abandon the language altogether once they’ve got it down. And Japanese? Japanese speakers are serious, serious people. Of course, all languages demand tedious, diligent study, but there’s something about Japanese that calls out to those who are quiet, kind, and, often, spiritual. People who would rather kneel on a tatami mat contemplating a calligraphy scroll than, say, slump on a sofa watching Gossip Girl.

I always fancied myself too frivolous for Japan. Going there would be like visiting a library—a quiet, orderly place where nothing much happens. A world unto itself with lovely things to look at but nothing much to do. I love libraries; I just didn’t want to spend my vacation in one. All that politeness stressed me out. There seemed to be a million rules—take your shoes off here, wear these slippers in the bathroom and nowhere else—and I didn’t understand any of them.

You can read the rest of the article here: Men at Work: Artisans of Old Japan. That should keep you going till lunchtime.

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