Strands of paper cranes hanging at a shrine in the hills near Nagano.
Month: May 2003
Copy Protection Is A Crime
David Weinberger has written an excellent editorial for Wired, wherin he argues that the movement to strictly control the use of content via copy protection technology and the law violates basic social mores.
We’re on the verge of instituting digital rights management. What do computers do best? Obey rules. What do they do worst? Allow latitude. Why? Because computers don’t know when to look the other way.
We’re screwed. Not because we MP3 cowboys and cowgirls will not [sic?] have to pay for content we’ve been “stealing.” No, we’re screwed because we’re undercutting the basis of our shared intellectual and creative lives. For us to talk, argue, try out ideas, tear down and build up thoughts, assimilate and appropriate concepts — heck, just to be together in public — we have to grant all sorts of leeway. That’s how ideas breed, how cultures get built. If any public space needs plenty of light, air, and room to play, it’s the marketplace of ideas.
There are times when rules need to be imposed within that marketplace, whether they’re international laws against bootleg CDs or the right of someone to sue for libel. But the fact that sometimes we resort to rules shouldn’t lead us to think that they are the norm. In fact, leeway is the default and rules are the exception.
Fairness means knowing when to make exceptions. After all, applying rules equally is easy. Any bureaucrat can do it. It’s far harder to know when to bend or even ignore the rules. That requires being sensitive to individual needs, understanding the larger context, balancing competing values, and forgiving transgressions when appropriate.
You’ll Take It, And You’ll Like It
Over at Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow picks apart the terms of service agreement of a Canadian internet service provider.
That’s standard Asshole Contract language, of course, but it just galls me every time I read it. Can you imagine the chutzpah you’d need to characterize this as an agreement? “Here’s something we’re shoving down your throat, agreed? What’s more, we reserve the right to shove more crap down your throat, without notifying you, and you’ll agree to that too. By the way, did you know that last week you agreed to let us come over and eat everything in your fridge? You’re so agreeable. That’s what we like about you, our customer.”
Car Crashes While Parked
Thailand’s finance minister had to be rescued from his car after the vehicle’s computer crashed.
Suchart Jaovisidha and his driver were trapped inside the BMW for more than 10 minutes before guards broke a window. All doors and windows had locked automatically when the computer crashed, and the air-conditioning stopped, officials said.
What was that line a few years back comparing crash-prone Windows with the auto industry? Looks like the distinction is no longer valid.
iPana Wave Laboratory
A caravan of all-white vehicles has been making its way through central Japan in recent days, causing alarm and concern among communities and government authorities. The vehicles carry members of a religious sect who believe the world will end this Thursday.
Pana Wave Laboratory members wear white clothing, which they believe protects them from electromagnetic waves. With the all-white clothing and vehicles, I’m imagining them quite at home in the current Apple universe — spokesmodels for iPods and iBooks, perhaps?
Roppongi Spider
Louise Bourgeois’ spider sculpture at the new Roppongi Hills complex in Tokyo.
Brrr
Um…okay. I’m sorry I complained. Tonight it’s so cold it feels like winter again.
Hot and Sticky, Again
It’s late evening and I’m sitting in my apartment with the windows wide open. But there’s no breeze and I’m drenched in sweat even though I’m wearing nothing more than shorts. It’s the first evening this spring that I’ve not been able to cool down, and I’m considering turning on the air conditioner for the first time this year just to get my body temperature down before going to sleep.
After a long, cold winter and a short spring, I’m reminded of how much I hated the weather here in Japan last summer. It’s not that it’s terrible hot right now, but the humidity is back and my body is again having a hard time adjusting to the excessive moisture in the air.
Weather-wise, I won’t be sorry to leave Japan. My Alaskan-grown body just can’t handle the humidity.
The Monkey Onsen
One of the great things about having overseas visitors is the chance it offers for hitting some of the obvious tourist destinations that I might otherwise leave unexplored. I’ve been here in Nagano for almost a year now and have never made the trip up to Jigokudani Monkey Park to see the famous “snow” monkeys.
Yesterday, while my step-mom, Sheri, was off lunching and shopping with a group of hung over young ladies, the guys (myself, Geoff and my father) drove to the narrow valley an hour north of Nagano to see the “Monkey Onsen.”
The monkeys live in the hills around the area, but now spend most of their time in the valley where they are kept well-fed. In the winter, they bathe in man-made pools full of warm hot spring water. Turns out they also bathe in the summer, as well, but mostly to grab the seeds that are occasionally scattered into the pool.
Since it was a national holiday, I was expecting more people. But the hundreds of monkeys easily outnumbered the fifty or so visitors. The monkeys pretty much ignore human visitors, wandering right past people. The only warnings are no touching, no eye contact and no feeding.
There is also a human hot springs and lodge about 300 meters down the valley, and on the day we visited half a dozen men were lounging in the outdoor pool in the buff, pretty much directly under the viewing platform for the monkeys. Not surprisingly, the monkeys were getting all the attention — cute, fuzzy animals are much more charming than wrinkled old men sitting in a tub.
By the way, it’s worth taking a look at the park’s website, if only to see amazingly garbled translations that end up like this:
The excrements of the monkey on the snow are figured a spit dumpling, which like adulterate sawdust and fiber, because of the monkey eats some kinds of rind and bud mainly.
There’s also a live web cam, which the little guy below was keen to appear on.
Kodomo No Hi
Today is Children’s Day, a national holiday in Japan. Although the current name of the holiday is not gender-specific, the holiday has traditionally been a festival for boys (there is a girls’ festival in March that isn’t a national holiday). On Children’s Day, carp flags — symbolizing strength, determination and long life — fly outside many homes.
Driving through the hills near Japan’s northern alps yesterday, we came across several long collections with dozens of the carp flags stretched across valley and rivers. The flags above were just outside of Hakuba.