DIY Law Enforcement: Shibuya Center-Gai Patrol

Is Japan turning into a police state or what? Check out this post from Japan Probe on Shibuya Center-Gai Patrol (SCGP) a volunteer group of authoritarian do-gooders who patrol the streets of Shibuya wearing imitation uniforms--resembling police and security guard outfits--and yelling and blowing whistles at anyone who isn't behaving like a model citizen--apparently they believe model citizens should also be in motion--never standing or sitting on the street.

If you understand a bit of Japanese, then you can see that their use of strong language is clearly offensive and harassing.

It's been reported that they sometimes bring German Shepherds (also in uniform) on their patrols.

Link with videos here

UPDATE:
My friend Jeff G. adds:

Anyone who's ever had any training with conflict resolution or policing
can see that these guys are doing everything wrong. You can read by the body language of these guys; the swaggering, getting into people's faces and personal space, they've been watching too many cop dramas.

Watch the scene with the foreigner smoking and you see them kind of circle around behind while the main guy stands in front. This is a move that is used to intimidate the subject. Police (real police, that is) would use this in the case of a threatening subject, because it can be used where you want to keep someone a little unnerved and vulnerable to a take-down. It's a definitely overkill in this case.

And the scene with the German Shepherd dog that they have - what's the point of that? As these guys are not police, I can't think of any legitimate reason they would need a dog to do their "patrol". The only reason you'd have a dog like that is to attack or take down a suspect, protect the handler or search for contraband, so I am assuming it is another intimidation tactic or just an accessory for their "freelance police" cosplay.

Yeah, aren't their anti-gang laws in Japan? What's the difference between the activities of SCGP and those of a street gang:
-both use intimidation to wield influence over a neighborhood
-both congregating in groups often loitering in the street
-both signify their membership in an exclusive group with the use of special clothes

SGCP are harassing and intimating people with strong language, the use of confrontational body language, uniforms, dogs and whistles.

How would the police react if a group of young males dressed up in some intimidating uniform and swarmed around drunken salarymen with dogs and whistles and berated them for being low-lifes and a nuisance to society?

(thanks to kmb for letting me know about this story.)

Ikebukuro Police Checking Foreigners' IDs

I noticed these police in the station doing random checks of foreign looking people's identification. I started shooting them, and they got pissed and told me that I couldn't take pictures ("Shashin wa dame!")

I held my ground, and we got into a heated debate. I told them to check their law books because I clearly understand there is no law that forbids a photojournalist from taking pictures of police. They asked me to prove I was a journalist so I gave them my business card (which says White Rabbit PRESS and also Publisher. They eventually gave up and started harassing other foreigners.

I kind of feel bad about the whole argument because I repect the police here (they're quite a relief from the sexually pent-up ex-marine macho American mentality I'm use to back in Texas). But I just think that random checks is a pretty inconsiderate and ineffective way to find illegal immigrants.

Ikebukuro is crawling with hordes of foreign prostitues--especially Chinese who have moved to places like Ikebukuro to escape police raids and other efforts to clean-up Kabukicho. Why don't they just do some undercover work because Chinese girls on the street are asking me all the time, "Massage? Sex OK!" (In Japan, you can buy and sell anything except intercourse and be on the right side of the law.)

I asked one of the officers why they were working in the station, because I'd never seem them doing this guy of thing in the station before. He said it was because it was raining outside (which was true).

For a gallery/slideshow of more photos from this series click here.

Michelin Gives Stars, but Tokyo Turns Up Nose

Nice follow-up story on the Michelin's attempt at dictating what is good and bad cuisine in Tokyo.

Many prominent figures of the Tokyo food world, however, are saying to Michelin, in effect, thanks for all the attention (which we deserve), but you still do not know us or our cuisine.

Food critics, magazines and even the governor of Tokyo have questioned the guide’s choice of restaurants and ratings. A handful of chefs proudly proclaimed that they had turned down chances to be listed. One, Toshiya Kadowaki, said his nouveau Japonais dishes, including a French-inspired rice with truffles, did not need a Gallic seal of approval.

"Japanese food was created here, and only Japanese know it,” Mr. Kadowaki said in an interview. “How can a bunch of foreigners show up and tell us what is good or bad?”


...the idea of ranking restaurants offended Japanese sensibility against bragging and putting others down.

Click here for the NYT article

Regulating Japanese Internets

The Japanese government thinks they can regulate content on the internet--yet can't keep cigarettes and porn away from children at the local 7/11.

The Japanese government made major moves [recently] toward legislating extensive regulation over online communication and information exchange within its national borders. In a series of little-publicized meetings attracting minimal mainstream coverage, two distinct government ministries, that of Internal Affairs and Communications (Somusho) and that of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho), pushed ahead with regulation in three major areas of online communication: web content, mobile phone access, and file sharing...

Regulating the Japanese cyberspace continues here.

BoingBoing let's us know how well China's storied and expensive Great Firewall holding up.

PBS Frontline discussion on censorship and web filtering/blocking in China.

Sex in the Park, and Its Sneaky Spectators: The Photography of Kohei Yoshiyuki

WHY are the Japanese couples in Kohei Yoshiyuki’s photographs having sex outdoors? Was 1970s Tokyo so crowded, its apartments so small, that they were forced to seek privacy in public parks at night? And what about those peeping toms? Are the couples as oblivious as they seem to the gawkers trespassing on their nocturnal intimacy?

Layers of Voyeurism If the social phenomena captured in these photographs seem distinctly linked to Japanese culture, Mr. Yoshiyuki’s images of voyeurs reverberate well beyond it. Viewing his pictures means that you too are looking at activities not meant to be seen. We line up right behind the photographer, surreptitiously watching the peeping toms who are secretly watching the couples. Voyeurism is us...

Click here to continue reading this NYT article.

Audio slideshow Layers of Voyeurism

The Pursuit Of Happiness

Quite insightful look at the happiest place on earth--no, not Disneyland--Denmark. A bit slow at the start, but really hits it's stride in the second half.

Click the picture to play. Morley Safer reports for 60 minutes. Running time: 12 minutes.

CHALLENGES FACING HUMANITY

These 14 challenges facing humanity were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston:
-Make solar energy affordable
-Provide energy from fusion
-Develop carbon sequestration
-Manage the nitrogen cycle
-Provide access to clean water
-Reverse engineer the brain
-Prevent nuclear terror
-Secure cyberspace
-Enhance virtual reality
-Improve urban infrastructure
-Advance health informatics
-Engineer better medicines
-Advance personalised learning
-Explore natural frontiers

Now go get to work on that will ya

Refocus Imaging: Computational Cameras

2008 may see a new generation of cameras, dubbed computational cameras, that allow viewers to refocus an image after it has been captured.

Refocus Imaging, a Stanford University spinoff, is licensing lens and software technology
that allows a camera to capture the entire light field entering the lens, not just an ordinary image.

An array of micro lenses between the lens and sensor capture all the focus fields at once. Viewers can then move a slider accompanying the image file (which will be a new format) and refocus each image file at will — an entirely new end-user experience.

I don't know how many viewers would really care about refocusing an image, but I think this technology has more interesting applications such as making it easier to extend the depth of field in macro (close-up) photography--something which can be accomplished today with a technique called focus stacking but requires a lot more work and can be problematic or impossible if there is motion in the scene.

Focus Stacked Dolichopodid(Source: AirBrontosaurus )


According to Refocus Imaging, their Digital Lens platform requires only two changes to a conventional camera:
-A new microlens array in front of the sensor
-Refocus’ proprietary software

The incremental change in hardware creates an enormous increase in the power of the recorded light. A conventional camera records only the average value of the many light rays striking each pixel. A Refocusing Digital Lens camera records each of the individual light rays, providing much more information to compute better pictures.

See it in action: select an image from the Refocus gallery and click on the image to focus at a specific location. Use the right hand slide bar to push or pull the focal plane.

Note from Chris aka AirBrontosaurus on the above Dolichopodid image:

Manual focus stacking with moving objects can be tough. You have to be quick, but still make sure you capture all the different points. This is compounded by the fact that the fly in the picture (Dolichopodids) are very, very skittish. The flash pulse usually sends them flying, so you can only get one shot before they're gone. This one didn't move, so I figured I had to get a good stack on him.

The macro lens I use (Canon MP-E) actually doesn't focus. It only has one focusing distance for a given magnification ratio, and you have to move the entire camera to change the focal point. So, in addition to working with very small DOFs, you have to move forward and backwards tiny amounts to get all the focal planes to line up. It's hard, but a lot of fun.

Behind the Caricature

I really enjoyed every one of these masterfully produced videos by deeply penetrating and insightful caricature artist John Kascht. Each is just a couple minutes long. They really challenge me to push deeper in the portrayals of people and places in my own writing assignments. I especially liked the ones about Obama and Guiliani. And Romney too. They're all good.

Homeland Security as Public Works Project

As an American it's frustrating to see so many billions of tax-payer dollars wasted on "Homeland Security". The Department of Homeland Security operates with a budget of over $46 billion (a 10.7% increase over 2008), and it's mission extends far and wide across countless departments, agencies and industries. Just take a look at this 2009 budget overview if you think it's just about slowing people down at the airport. (If there is nothing good on TV this month because of the WGA strike, you can always read all 3,574 pages of the budget details.)

What's frustrating is that I'm personally convinced that despite spending over $126 million dollars per day I think any sufficiently motivated person with average intelligence could figure out countless ways to harm, blow-up, poison and terrorize the American population. It took just a single man and an adolescent boy to terrorize the Beltway Tri-state back in 2002, increasing the area's murder rate by 25%. Imagine if instead of hijacking a plane, 12 men manage to emulate the Beltway sniper's modus operandi? Or the could simply put cyanide in random grocery store foodstuffs in cities across the country. Or mail anthrax to a 10,000 people. Or remember what Timothy McVeigh accomplished. Or the sarin gas attacks on Tokyo's subways.

I do think that every country needs some security, but enough is enough. No amount of money would ever prevent a sufficiently motivated person or group from accomplishing grand acts of terrorism on a society.

But what I realized today is that maybe this whole Homeland Security fiasco basically amounts to Bush's economic stimulus plan. It certainly simulates lots of industries with the big budget, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. So I guess it's not that different from a pointless public works project, like building freeways, bridges and dams in places that don't really need them...

But the problem is we DO need freeways, bridges and dams. America is falling apart at the seams. "Our power grids, our rail system, our roads and bridges, our drinking water and drainage systems, our dams, our ports, our dumps: they're all failing, sometimes in visible catastrophic ways, often in just slow losses of service and usability." (source.)

But I guess it's pretty hard for any working congress person to vote against a DHS budget increase. They'd be branded as "voting with the terrorists".

B O E G E

Met Noriko today at Cafe Pause who is working for Beno Lavaud of the Tokyo fashion brand BOEGE--a unique line of men's wear.

Beno (shown modeling his brand above) is a French designer, with a background in cosmetics, now based in Tokyo. Created for professionals in their 30's, his men's wear is an interesting fusion of casual, soft cotton fabrics with formal features like cuffs and standing collars. Available in a mind-numbing 50 colors "specially created for the brand...each tone tells a special story, thought or emotion."

BOEGE has a shop in Isetan Men's (Shinjuku, 6F) and in others shops around Japan, Europe and in Beverly Hills.

Nadav Kander, Photographer

Just learned about this photographer from a friend recently. Really love his compositions and muted tones in Yangtze, The Long River.

His flash site is a bit slow to load, but well worth the wait.

www.nadavkander.com

Early Morning Skyline in Akatsuka

Shot this shot and a few others at daybreak today.



Click it for a better look!

RSA Films - TOSHIBA

Some nice work by Johnny Hardstaff of RSA Films for Toshiba.

Click here to watch Toshiba - Light Lighter UK Brand Only

PauseTalk Photo Pool

We recently setup a flickr Photo Pool for our PauseTalk design group.



What is PauseTalk?
PauseTalk is a monthly meeting of Tokyo-based creatives. We meet on the first Monday of each month starting at 20:00 in Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can share and discuss their current projects, meet other creatives for potential collaboration, and keep their thumb on cultural currents. PauseTalk was founded by Jean Snow who writes about design in Tokyo and works at White Rabbit Press where he is co-producer on a top-secret project.

Greed Sucks.

Interesting video from Oliver Stone on the WGA at this new Voices 4 Action site.

Tamao Photographer

I found a photog. on flickr who's work I really love.



But when looking at her work, I wonder: are some of these shots possible with straight photography, or is some Photoshopping necessary to get the right results?

Something seems special about the colors and tonality in many of the shots. Regardless, she's a very exceptional photographer! Click her photo above to jump to her gallery.

International Center for Photography: Photo Tips

Here's another link to add to my collection of good photography tips:

International Center for Photography: Photo Tips
(thanks Spencer!)

Backup Your Data (or Kiss it Goodbye)

Scientifically, a study by Google of 100,000 hard drives, showed:

• The rate of failure is higher for the first few months.
• The failure rate for hard drives in service for only two years was eight percent annually.

In other words, one-out-of-every-twelve hard drives fails in the first two years.

Similar results were obtained by another study.

White Rabbit Press - Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Volume 3

First look at our upcoming product. Uncut sheets of kanji cards straight off the press.



White Rabbit Press Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Volume 3 provides the complete set of kanji required for Level 1 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). Are products are the only kanji cards on the market designed specifically for the JLPT. This Volume 3 set includes over 5,400 vocabulary words.

Release date is April 2008. but we'll start taking pre-orders soon.

Links to this post highly welcome :)