The new Japanese consumer

A McKinsey  report

Picking a firm from Sortfolio to redesign Signal vs. Noise

37Signals as decided to hire a designer from it's own Sortfolio Pro member accounts to redesign it's blog.
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2164-picking-a-firm-from-sortfolio-to-redesign-signal-vs-noise

Apparently Oliver Reichenstein finds this outrageous, in twitter posts documented here:
http://www.webstandardistas.com/2010/02/twitter-is-watching.php

I don't really see the problem. 37Signals is also paying the winner $8,500, a fair amount of money for a blog redesign. True, it takes $99 to compete, but some raffles and door prizes require a entry fee, and some photography contests charge admission fees. What's the big deal? I recently paid hundreds of dollars to be considered for an Audie award for an audio production I produced. Or one last example, a friend of mine applied for a job at a game design firm as a sound designer. They gave him a test: to design all the sound for a short in-game video which had all the audio muted. It took him a week--thus costing him more than $99 in lost client work--but he got the job.

True, 37Signals might overlook some great design talent by only looking at the people who are paying to compete, but that's their decision and I don't see anything really wrong with it. There are just too many members and they need some way to sort out the signal from the noise. Just as a package design contest charges an entry fee because they couldn't otherwise afford to review the avalanche of submissions.

Think about what's at stake: 37Signals boasts millions of users. By winning the bid to design for this well-known and respected company, your design credit has a chance at some very good exposure. Plus you get $8,500.

How is this any worse than the business model at http://99designs.com/? As a designer registered at 99designs, you have to actually DESIGN work for prospective clients, and you only get paid if they select your design from among countless others. Makes the 37Signals offer sound like a much better deal to me. With the 37signals promotion, you pay $99 to have your portfolio considered. With 99designs you actually have to design the project first, on your own time;time which may be valued at way more than $99.

I think 37signals are free to do business however they want, and I personally don't see the outrage here.

Hard Candy

[finally] uploaded a set of shots I took back in October
http://www.maxhodges.com/sets/hardcandy/

Patrick Macias on Two Types of Otaku

Posted an outtake from a studio recording session with Patrick Macias about the two main types of Otaku: http://bit.ly/4GH6hx

Response to Colony Drop post on Akihabara

Sean at Colony Drop wrote this terrifically uninformed hack job on Akihabara over on a blog called ColonyDrop:
http://is.gd/5hqZP

My thoughts on his piece below:

Sean,
I see that you dislike Akihabara, but your attack piece amounts to little more than uninformed opinion.

>Akihabara embraced personal computer enthusiasts in the early 1990s

Technically the area started attracting computer nerds a bit earlier. In 1976 NEC launched its low-cost TK-80 microcomputer assembly kit for hobbyists (considered Japan's first home computer), and they opened a Bit-INN Service Center that same year on the seventh floor of the Radio Kaikan building in Akihabara to provide technical support to customers.

You seems to be really hung up on discrediting the place as simply a haven for smut and sex (although you can only cite a single venue for sex, which no longer exists...)

• It’s the sex and pornography that keeps Akihabara going
• ...the sex comes in other forms as well...
• ...arguing against the implicit sexual undertones of the maid cafe phenomenon is simply naive. 
• ...in a country where actual sex for money is commonly offered in many forms.
• ready to spend serious money on their own sexual fulfillment
• 2D sexual fulfillment

Well, maids can be are pretty damn sexy, but if you've spent any time at all in maid cafes you'd know they have about as much to do with sex as your typical Denny's restaurant...

Seems to me the only person obsession with sex here is you yourself. I'm reminded of this brilliant statement by Stephen Fry regarding the Catholic church's same obsession:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUOUMqyimhA#t=8m17s

The truth is that Akihabara is a unique part of Tokyo, a place unlike any other city in the world, with an interesting past and a varied and vibrant culture which encompasses all sorts of hobbies from model cars and planes, DIY electronics, audiophile systems, to video games, and of course anime and manga.

To deny that Akihabara is neither a subcultural hotspot, or that it even has a subculture, sounds like evidence that you've never been more than an outsider looking in on the place.

There is no doubt that the people who regularly enjoy Akihabara tend to have similar hobbies and interests, styles of dress, patterns of behavior, and they  share an in-group jargon...all the elements which define the very nature of a subculture.

H&M Magazine, Maryna Linchuk by Terry Richardson

http://fashiongonerogue.com/2009/11/hm-magazine-maryna-linchuk-by-terry-richardson/

Storyboard Composer

This really blows my mind: Storyboard Composer is the worlds first mobile story boarding application.

http://www.cinemek.com/storyboard/index.php

Helios

An iPhone/iPod Touch application that graphically predicts the path of the sun from dusk to dawn, on any given day, in any given place.

http://www.chemicalwedding.tv/helios.html

Komamura ViewCamera Converter for DSLR

Convert your Horseman, Nikon, or Canon DSLR camera into a View Camera with Komamura's View Camera Converter

details here http://www.komamura.co.jp/digital/VCCpro/index.html

English Press Release here
http://www.komamura.co.jp/e/press/PR090817vccpro.pdf

Pirelli 2010 Calendar Preview NSFW

Eniko Mihalik, Rosie Huntington Whiteley, Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw, Daisy Lowe, Gracie Carvalho, Marloes Horst, Lily Cole, Ana Beatriz Barros, Miranda Kerr, and Georgina Stojiljkovic all appear nude in the 2010 Pirelli Calendar as shot by Terry Richardson, though this is a preview.

http://www.fashionising.com/pictures/s--Pirelli-2010-Calendar-Preview-NSFW-3181-1.html

"It's not who you know, it's who you blow."
--Terry Richardson

Chris Jordan Interview

Digital photographic artist Chris Jordan interview on Bill Moyers Journal

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08072009/watch3.html

Olympus E-P1

Olympus E-P1 Micro Four Thirds camera is the world's smallest 12.3-mexapixel interchangeable lens system camera, video and audio recorder in one.

From dpreview:
When Olympus launched the legendary Pen series of cameras in 1959, this bold and revolutionary achievement rewrote the history of photography. Designed by renowned style guru Yoshihisa Maitani, the Pen represented the perfect marriage of simplicity, style and performance. Five decades later the Olympus passion for innovation is still setting the pace.

With the release of the E-P1, the digital era’s next generation Olympus Pen has arrived: mirrors are no longer a necessary component for digital cameras with interchangeable lenses. The first groundbreaking Olympus Micro Four Thirds model impresses with its incredibly small size, retro style, and ease of use – without giving up any of the benefits of D-SLR quality.

more here:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0906/09061601olympusep1.asp

and here:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1461

TrueGrain

TrueGrain is a creative tool for accurately recapturing the aesthetics of black and white film with digital imagery.

TrueGrain takes the form of a stand-alone image processing utility that imposes the physical characteristics of a real-world film stock onto a digital image. The synthesis is done through measured and sampled data gathered from the actual film and development process being reproduced.
The library of film stocks TrueGrain implements are detailed here: http://grubbasoftware.com/filmlibrary.html

A single TrueGrain license costs US$300.

The inspiration came from necessity. Recently, we realized we could no longer get the films we were accustomed to. The majority of black and white films have gone out of production and entire manufacturers have left the film business. We decided the only way we could continue to achieve the look we got from film was by processing digital images. We went on a film hunt on eBay and bought just about everything we could find. Between that and the films we already had stockpiled, we had a good basis for TrueGrain’s “digital grain library.”

details: http://grubbasoftware.com/index.html

Escalator Ride to Kaiyodo

Escalator Ride to Kaiyodo by whiterabbitpress

My first 'chiptune' 8-bit track. Composed entirely of Nintendo Gameboy samples, this will be used for a short segment in my upcoming "Tokyo Realtime: Akihabara" audio tour.

In my tour this will have Voice Over (VO) but here I'd muted the VO track.

Details to emerge here:
http://www.tokyorealtime.com

Snap Pictures in the Dark with Electrophysics AstroScope

US company Electrophysics has two adapters which can make your Canon or Nikon dSLR snap pictures in the dark. Such an application is not new and was previously implemented in surveillance and video cameras for recording footages in the dark. But the AstroScope 9350-series adapters are specially designed to be used with dSLRs.

Electrophysics AstroScope is an advanced night vision module that incorporates a state-of-the-art image intensifier that transforms dark scenes into bright, highresolution images. The AstroScope 9350EOS-P is specifically designed for Canon EOS-type cameras and mounts between the camera body and Canon EOS lenses using the standard Canon bayonet. AstroScope incorporates a high quality optic designed specifically for today’s digital SLR cameras and delivers full frame images with little or no vignetting.


These night vision systems fit between the camera body and the lens. There is a central intensifier unit (CIU) which illuminates the scene dramatically even if there is only a weak light source. What is special is that these adapters maintain the electrical connections required for image stabilizer operation and autofocus by the optics.

http://www.electrophysics.com/night-vision/

Sony Announces PCM-M10 Digital Field Recorder

July 20th, 2009 – Sony today launched its latest digital field recorder, the PCM-M10. Will a retail price around $399, the PCM-D1 will go head-to-head with similarly sized and priced recorders including the Marantz PMD620, Tascam DR-1, and Zoom H4n.

The Sony PCM-D10 will be the cheapest flash-based recorder from Sony capable of recording 96kHz/24-bit stereo audio using either the internal electret condenser mics or an external mic or line input. The recorder has 4GB of built in memory and a MicroSD/Memory Stick Micro slot. This is the first time any Sony recorder has accepted any form of flash media other than Sony's proprietary Memory Stick format.

The new recorder is 96 kHz/24-bit capable with electret condenser stereo microphones, 4 GB of internal flash memory and a microSD/Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) Slot*.

Key features include:
-a built-in speaker
-cross-memory recording
-digital pitch control
-digital limiter
-low-cut filter
-track mark functions
-a 5-second pre-recording buffer; and,
-A-B repeat capability

The PCM-M10 comes supplied with Sound Forge Audio Studio Recorder Edition software.

more details and video here:
http://www.soundonsound.com/news?NewsID=11803

NAKED TOKYO: FRIDAY June 26th

Come join me and friends for a group exhibition in Roppongi's SuperDeluxe this Friday.

The Naked Tokyo exhibition presents the work of an international group of photographers focusing on self-portraiture, sex, eroticism, and anonymous nudity.

41 Photographers
50 Photos
One Night Only!


Start Time: Friday, June 26, 2009 at 6:30pm
End Time: Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 2:00am
Location: SuperDeluxe in Roppongi
Street: B1F 3.1.25 Nishi Azabu, Minato-ku,

Phone: 0354120515
Email: nakedtokyo@gmail.com


Naked Tokyoでは、セルフポートレイト・セックス・エロティシズム・ヌードに焦点を置いた国内外の写真家の作品展を開催いたします。
４１人の写真家
一夜限り

June 26th (Friday) from 18:30 @ SuperDeluxe in Roppongi.
1000 yen entry fee

http://www.super-deluxe.com/2009/06/26/
http://www.nakedtokyo.com/

Photo (C) Max Hodges, from NAKED TOKYO Exhibition in Shibuya, December 2008

Immersions: Porn by Robbie Coopers

SprintCam

Click the link to see it larger

I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.